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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



5V .4- >ti 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



"A FATHER'S BLESSING." 



THE PILGRIM SERIES. 



BY THE REV. WM. W. NEWTON. 
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BY DR. RICHARD NEWTON. 



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New York. 







&£a&eJwL- k^ 



'A FATHER'S BLESSING" 



©tijer Sermons for CJjttoren 



WILLIAM WILBERFORCE NEWTON 

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE AND WISE," " THE WICKET-GATE," "INTERPRETER'S 
HOUSE," " PALACE BEAUTIFUL," " GREAT HEART " 



' Bless me, even me also, O my Father ! " 




2*7 r 

NEW YORK 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS 
530 Broadway 

\ 



13 Y^-315 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1888, 
By Robert Carter & Brothers. 



ELECTROTYPED BY 

THE ORPHANS' PRESS— CHURCH CHARITY FOUNDATION, BROOKLYN. 

CAMBRIDGE PRESS— JOHN WILSON & SONS. 



PREFACE. 



Some time ago my dear Father asked me what 
he should take up as his next course of sermons 
to children. I suggested as a good subject the 
blessing of Jacob upon his twelve sons. His re- 
ply was, " I don't think that is in my line : you 
write a course on that subject, and I will take up a 
course on Bible animals/ 7 When I came to write 
the last sermon in this course, he had finished one 
half of the sermons laid out in his plan, and lay 
dying at his home at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 

As I go on with the work he has left, and com 
plete his unfinished course, I take a sad satisfaction 
in bidding his little friends and readers farewell, in 
this last book of sermons which, strangely enough, 
was named long before he died : 

"A Father's Blessing." 

Pittsfield, Mass. 
Jan. 1, 1888. 



1 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER FAGH 

1. The Blessing op Reuben, the Unsta- 

ble Son 9 

2. Simeon and Levi, the Cruel Sons. . 25 

3. Judah, the Successful Son .... 41 

4. Zebulon, the Sailor Son 55 

5. issachar, the unambitious son. . . 69 

6. Dan, the Deceitful Son 85 

7. Gad, the Persevering Son .... 101 

8. Asher, the Self-Indulgent Son . .117 

9. Naphtali, the Light-minded Son . .131 

10. Joseph, the Fruitful Son .... 141 

11. Benjamin, the Son of the Right Hand. 155 

12. The Father himself, who Blessed his 

Boys 169 

13. Realized Dreams 181 

14. Lessons from the Clock 195 

(vii) 



viii Contents. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

15. Dogs 211 

16. The Power of a Fact 225 

17. Satan's Fisbing Tackle 243 

18. The Man wbo Saved, and tbe Man 

who Taxed 257 

19. School-boy Saints 269 

20. Wells and Water Pipes 283 

21. Innocency 293 

22. Lessons from the Ferry Boat . . . 309 

23. "Spirits in Prison" 321 

24. " The Lion and the Bear " . . . . 333 



l 



THE BLESSING OF REUBEN; 
or, THE UNSTABLE SON. 

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." 

Genesis xlix. 4. 

^OU all know the story of Jacob and 
Esau, and how the younger sup- 
planted his older brother, and stole his 
father Isaac's blessing. And you remem- 
ber, too, how that stolen blessing proved a 
curse, until the robber son made atonement 
for the gift which he had stolen. 

Now I am going to speak to you in this 
course of children's sermons, about 

"A FATHER'S BLESSING." 

The old man in the story is the dying Jacob 
— the same who in his youth had robbed his 
brother of his birthright. He is now at the 

(9) 



10 A Father's Blessing. 

end of his long and troubled life. His face 
is turned to the wall and his children are 
kneeling around his bedside. Most of his 
sons had been hard and wicked boys. They 
had given their father no end of sorrow and 
trouble, and had brought down his gray hair 
with sorrow to the grave. But now the past 
was all over ; the aged patriarch had only a 
few more hours to live, and before he died 
he wanted to give to each of his children the 
blessing or the judgment which their life de- 
served. "And Jacob called unto his sons 
and said, ' Gather yourselves together that I 
may tell you that which shall befall you in 
the last days. Gather yourselves and hear, 
ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel, 
your father.' " 

The first blessing which the dying old man 
uttered was upon his oldest son, Reuben. 

"Reuben," he said, "thou art my first 
born, my might and the beginning of my 
strength, the excellency of dignity and the 
excellency of power. Unstable as water, thou 
shalt not excel." ' 



The Unstable Son. 11 

Reuben was the unstable son of the family. 
He was the oldest and ought to have set a 
good example. As it was he was weak and 
infirm of purpose. So then there was not 
much of a blessing upon this irresolute and 
wayward son. Instability had been his 
curse and temptation. His life was a fail- 
ure because of his unstable character. And 
I suppose it was because of this instability 
of Reuben's nature, which was a fault his 
father had long before found out in him, 
that Jacob refused to let Benjamin go with 
him down to Egypt, when the long-lost 
Joseph sent for him. "And Reuben spake 
unto his father, saying: Slay my two sons 
if I bring him not to thee: deliver him 
into my hand and I will bring him to thee 
again. 

" And he said, My son shall not go down 
with you : for his brother is dead and he is 
left alone: if mischief befall him in the way 
in which you go, then shall ye bring down 
my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave" 
(Gen. xlii. 26). If Jacob had trusted Reuben, 



12 A Father's Blessing. 

he would undoubtedly have let Benjamin go 
with him. 

Instability is a great fault in our character, 
and surely brings a curse upon us. It ruins 
us if we become unstable ourselves, or get the 
reputation of instability fastened upon us. 

A large party of gentlemen some time ago 
went camping out in the Adirondack woods. 
They had guides and boats and dogs and 
tents in great abundance. 

There was a famous doctor in the party, 
who was a great shot, and always brought 
home at night the game he started out to 
find. 

One day he took one of the small boys in 
the party along with him. The boy's name 
was Jack. Jack wanted to stop and shoot 
at every stump and small bird on their trail. 

Presently he saw a great number of 
swallows skimming along the lake. 

" Doctor, doctor ! There are plenty of 
birds," called out Jack. " Why don't you 
fire ? " 

" Because," said the doctor, " I've come out 



The Unstable Son. 13 

for ducks; and when I go for ducks, I never 
stop to shoot at small birds." 

Now, my dear children, the trouble with 
many of us in life is just this. We stop to 
hunt for trifles when we ought to be going 
for larger results. If we go for ducks, we 
ought not to stop for mere swallows ; for if 
we stop to catch every little thing in our 
way, we never will bring home any large re- 
turns of our labor. 

You have all read about the yacht race 
of the American boat, the Puritan, with the 
Genesta, the English yacht which came over 
here to take away the prize cup. 

Now, suppose that the captain of the Puri- 
tan had altered his course on that exciting 
race, every time some friend thought he 
could make a better run in some different 
way ; or suppose he had stopped a while to 
catch a school of blue fish, which had come 
in his path, where would have been his prize 
at the end of the race ? 

No huntsman can excel in a day's shoot- 
ing if he stops for every little trifle. No 



14 A Father's Blessing. 

captain can drive his boat on the winning 
side who stops or bends his course at the 
advice of every friend. 

To be successful in every department of 
life, we must keep to our course, and not 
turn aside for the sake of trifles. 

An unstable, irresolute, uncertain nature 
never, never can win in the race of life. 

There are three reasons w r hy instability 
of character makes us like this son Keuben, 
and keeps one from excelling. 



The first reason is: 

Because an unstable person has no stand- 
ard of living. Everything that has life in it 
must have some standard or scale of action. 

A carrier pigeon which flies hundreds of 
miles from city to city over rivers and 
mountains, travels at a regular and uniform 
rate of speed. The wild ducks which fly 
south along the Atlantic seaboard in October, 
fly at a regular rate of about eighty miles 
an hour. 



The Unstable Son. 15 

There is no instability about the carrier 
pigeons or the wild ducks. They know the 
point they are going to, and never bend 
their course to suit any mere whim of the 
moment. 

Here are two clocks. They are each 
wound up, and ought to go correctly. One 
of them does go, in as even and regular a 
way as it can, and tries to keep as near to 
the sun's time as it is possible to do. The 
other goes for a while, and then stops; and 
afterwards, when it tumbles down, or when 
somebody knocks it, goes on again. 

"Which, of these clocks w T ould you trust ? 
Which of them would you want to have as 
your standard of time by which, to regulate 
your engagements? Certainly you would 
not want the Eeuben-like clock, the unstable 
and uncertain time-piece. If we do not 
know what the true time is, we will miss the 
train, and lose the steamboat, and be late to 
school and to church, and will have every- 
thing go wrong with us, and be behind time 
continually. 



16 A Father's Blessing. 

An unstable clock is a poor thing to run 
one's life by. We are never sure of the 
hour, and can never be punctual and exact 
in meeting our duties. 

And an unstable character is just like an 
unstable clock. Sometimes the unstable 
person is before time and sometimes he is 
behind time. Sometimes he is full of zeal, 
and sometimes he is dull and tedious. At 
one time we can depend upon him — at 
another time he is not to be counted on at 
all. To-day he is glad to see us; to-morrow 
he passes us by without a word. 

An unstable person is a poor companion ; 
a poor friend; a poor worker. 

No matter what powers or gifts or graces 
of character any of us may have, if we are 
unstable and uncertain and cannot be de- 
pended upon, we are poor, worthless things. 
Pray God, my dear children, to help you get 
the better over this terrible fault, for if it 
grows upon you it will turn all your life 
blessings into a curse, as it did with this 
poor Eeuben, Jacob's oldest son. Instability 



The Unstable Son. 17 

of character keeps us from excelling in the 
first place, because an unstable person has 
no standard of living. 

II. 

Secondly. — Instability of character keeps 
us from excelling, because an unstable per- 
son can never be trusted. 

If we were going to sail for Europe to- 
morrow in one of the great ocean steamers, 
we should want to be sure that the vessel 
would sail in a direct course for the haven 
where we would be. Suppose a steamer 
should take upon itself in mid ocean to stop 
for a week, or to start up and go to Green- 
land or Brazil, regardless of the compass or 
the will of the man at the wheel, we would 
certainly be in a very bad fix. We should 
not know where we were, or whither we 
were going ! But being on board an unsta- 
ble steamer is about the same thing as 
being bound to an unstable friend or adviser. 

Sometimes strong and steady parents have 
weak and irresolute children; and sometimes 



18 A Father's Blessing. 

it is the children who have unstable and un- 
certain parents. But in either case, the un- 
stable members of a family can never be 
trusted* They "forgot," and they "didn't 
think," and they were carried away by the 
mere thought of the moment, and never once 
thought of their duty; and after trying these 
unstable people over and over again, after a 
while we learn to put no trust in them. 

I suppose the old patriarch Jaccb had tried 
his boy Reuben very many times, and had 
found out that he could never be trusted, so 
that he would not think for one moment of 
letting him take charge of his son Benjamin, 
when he wanted to take him down to see his 
brother Joseph in Egypt. 

Some years ago a family from the east 
moved out to the far west and began to clear 
the ground in order to have a farm. There 
was a boy in the family named Tom, who 
used to help his father on the farm in many 
ways. But he was an uncertain kind of 
boy, and never could be found when he 
was wanted. 



The Unstable Son. 19 

One day his father and the men on the 
farm were moving logs. Tom was helping 
them in his way. His work was to pick up 
the rollers and put them under the logs, 
while his father and the men were bearing 
down on the other end of the log. 

" Now, Tom," cried his father, as they all 
pressed down on their end of the log, " now 
be quick there, and slide the roller under 
the other end of the log." 

" Yes, sir, yes, sir," called out Tom, "I'll be 
there in a minute. I saw a woodchuck, just 
now, and I'm going off to catch it." 

So the farm hands had to do Tom's work 
for him, and got into the way of never count- 
ing upon Tom any more. 

Some years after this, a friend of the family 
was passing by the house, and asked the man 
who was driving him what had become of the 
different members of the family. 

The driver told the stranger the story 
about the boy Tom and the woodchuck, and 
then added, "and now the old judge, Tom's 
father, is dead, and Tom's a grown-up man, 



20 A Father's Blessing. 

but stranger, he's been catching woodchucks 
ever since he was a boy, and he'll go on 
catching woodchucks all the w^ay to the end 
of his life." 

Dear children, do not let us be mere w T ood- 
chuck hunters through this life of ours. Do 
not let us spend our time in an uncertain and 
irresolute kind of life, throwing away our 
days over the mere accidents and trifles of 
life. The habit of catching ivoodchucJcs when 
we ought to be moving logs, will grow upon 
us if we do not keep it down. 

And if we become unstable, irresolute char- 
acters, running after trifles when we ought 
to be doing our steady, solid work, people 
will leave us to ourselves, because they will 
feel that we never can be trusted. 

III. 

Thirdly and Lastly. — Instability of character 
keeps us from excelling, because an unstable 
person has no power of endurance. The 
quality of endurance is a strong and conquer- 
ing power. Sometimes we want strength to 



The Unstable Son. 21 

accomplish certain things. At other times 
we want strength to endure. The strength 
of endurance is at times a greater bless- 
ing than the strength of accomplishing 
things. 

St. Paul says, in his Epistle to Timothy, 
" This one thing I do," as if he did this one 
thing at a time to keep himself from the 
great temptation of trying to do too many 
things. 

At a certain point in the battle of Water- 
loo, before it was at all clear that victory was 
coming to the English, the Duke of Welling- 
ton was greatly annoyed by a certain gene- 
ral who sent word to him to know what he 
should do. 

" Stand firm," replied the Duke. 

Presently another courier rode up to the 
side of the English commander with a second 
message from the division general. " We are 
being shot to pieces," wrote the general. 
" What shall we do ? " 

The Duke took out a card and wrote on it 
the words " Stand firm." 



22 A Father's Blessing. 

Half an hour afterwards a third courier 
came galloping up to the Duke. 

He brought still another message to the 
English leader. The message was this: 
" The enemy are turning our flank, and are 
pouring bullets into our side. What shall 
we do ? " 

The Iron Duke wrote on a scrap of paper 
his third message, "Stand firm." 

After this the General sent no more mes- 
sages to the Duke, for he knew beforehand 
what the orders would be. And it was be- 
cause this division stood firm and wore out 
the attacks by Napoleon, that the English 
were enabled a little while later to reap the 
great victory of Waterloo. But if the Duke 
of Wellington had been a Keuben, he never 
would have been victorious, for of all the Reu- 
bens in the world the words of the old dying 
Jacob are true, "Unstable as water thou 
shaft not excel." 

There was a minister once who was ordain- 
ed with high hopes of success. Every one 
predicted that he would have great success, 



The Unstable Son. 23 

and be a very useful minister, But he had 
one hidden defect, which did not come out in 
life until the hard experiences of life brought 
it out. 

1 He was a Eeuben. He was an unstable 
son, but he did not know it. 

He gave up the first parish he had because 
they had limewater there. Then he gave up 
his second church because they had bad but- 
ter in the place. His third parish did not 
suit him because of the salt air; and he 
couldn't get on in his fourth parish because 
of a certain Captain Crooks who was warden 
in it. At last, after moving about twelve or 
thirteen times, and wearing his poor wife and 
family out, he found that there was bad but- 
ter, or limestone water, or bad air, or a Cap- 
tain Crooks in every parish, and that the 
trouble was not with his surroundings, but 
was with his own poor, weak, miserable, un- 
stable self. 

He was a Eeuben. He was an unstable 
son, and because of this great defect in his 
life, the prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled in 



24 A Father's Blessing. 

his case — " Unstable as water thou shalt not 
excel." 

Now, my dear children, remember the les- 
sons of this sermon to-day upon Eeuben, the 
unstable son. 

Instability keeps us from excelling. 

Firstly. — Because an unstable person has 
no standard of living. 

Secondly. — Because an unstable person can 
never be trusted. 

Thirdly. — Because an unstable person has 
no power of endurance. 

Bemember this sermon on poor Eeuben. 
His father could not say very much that was 
good about him when he came to die. So his 
blessing was changed into a judgment and 
stands on the page of Scripture as a Bible 
warning against 

"The Unstable Son." 



n. 



SIMEON AND LEVI; or, THE 
CRUEL SONS. 

" Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of 
cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not 
thou into their secret : unto their assembly, mine honor, 
be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a 
man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. 
Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their 
wrath, for it was cruel : I will divide them in Jacob, 
and scatter them in Israel." — Genesis xlix. 5, 6, 7. 

£11 T is a terrible moment to us when we are 
(*mk sitting in a dentist's chair waiting for 
him to find the right instrument with which 
to take out our aching tooth. If the tooth 
were not so cruel, it would not drive us to 
that dreadful place. If the dentist's instru- 
ments were not so cruel, we would not mind 
sitting there. But it is the choice of evils 
which troubles us so much. While the tooth 

(25) 



26 A Father's Blessing. 

is throbbing away with its nerves and roots 
(its instruments of cruelty), the dentist stands 
before his cabinet debating with himself 
which of all his many instruments of cruelty 
will best do the work for us. And thus it 
comes to pass that we are in a bad plight 
either way ; for whichever way we turn, we 
see Simeon and Levi about us, with instru- 
ments of cruelty in their hands. 

Cruelty is a remnant of the beast-nature 
within us. If we were left to ourselves, with- 
out any moral or religious restraint or guid- 
ance, w r e would become as cruel as the beasts 
about us. 

We cannot read the pages of history with- 
out seeing at every turn the signs of human 
nature's cruelty. Think of the way in wdiich 
people in the name of God and for the sake 
of what they called " the truth," persecuted 
their fellow-men. Fox's Book of Martyrs is 
a book which we all love to read when we 
are young. It is filled with stories and pic- 
tures of the most terrible persecutions that it 
is possible to imagine. When I was a little 



The Cruel Sons. 27 

boy I used to read this book on Sunday after- 
noons, after a comfortable Sunday dinner, and 
used to feel very thankful that I did not live 
in that far-off Simeon and Levi age. 

Animals are cruel by nature. There is an 
old hymn, by Isaac Watts, in the nursery 
primers, which begins in this way : 

'* Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 
For 'tis their nature to ; 
Let bears and lions growl arid fight, 
For God hath made them so." 

How the tiger teases its prey ! How the 
cat plays with the poor, frightened little 
mouse before she kills it ! How the spider 
seems to gloat over the fly which it has caught 
in its web ! " Instruments of cruelty " are 
plainly visible at every turn in the animal 
world. The shark's tooth, the lobster's claw, 
the bull's horns, the cat's claws, are the weap- 
ons of warfare by which the animal creation 
make war on one another and defend them- 
selves. 

But the beast nature has nothing to do 



28 A Father's Blessing. 

with the kingdom of Heaven, and can never 
enter it. 

And whatever we have of the beast na- 
ture must be thrown off before we can be 
where our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed 
saints are. 

Simeon and Levi were cruel sons. We do 
not know much about them, but what we do 
know is bad. The old patriarch Jacob could 
not find anything good to say about these 
hard-hearted boys of his, and so he turned 
his blessing into a judgment, and uttered 
these words of our text: 

"Simeon and Levi are brethren; instru- 
ments of cruelty are in their habitations. 
O my soul, come not thou into their secret : 
unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou 
united; for in their anger they slew a man, 
and in their self-will they digged down a 
wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was 
fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I 
will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them 
in Israel." 

There were four distinct things which the 



The Cruel Sons. 29 

dying Jacob mentioned about bis cruel sons 
— Simeon and Levi. And tbe Bame four 
things are found to be connected with all 
cruel children. 

I. 

First of all : 

Cruel children always seek for instruments 
of cruelty. It is hard to be cruel if we have 
nothing to be cruel with. But if we have a 
club, or a whip, or a pair of spurs, or a bow- 
gun, then we will seek to find some animal 
to try our weapons on. 

But it is hard work to be cruel if we have 
no instruments of cruelty. A nation that 
has got no standing army will not seek to go 
to war. But a country which is filled with 
soldiers will always be wanting to fight. 
Some time ago I was in a police court where 
a young man was being tried for a stabbing 
affray. He had tried to stab another young 
man, and when he could not succeed in do 
ing this he fired a pistol after his enemy and 
wounded him in the leg. 

The Judge asked the prisoner what in- 



30 A Father's Blessing. 

duced him to carry such weapons as those. 
The boy replied that he had seen these dag- 
gers and pistols in the window of a cutlery 
shop, and that after looking at them in the 
shop window every night on his way home 
from work, he saved up his money and 
bought them ; and that when he had bought 
them, he was not happy until he had used 
them in some way. 

Now, my dear children, depend upon it, 
instruments of cruelty around us educate us 
in the art of being cruel. 

It would not have occurred to this boy to 
want to stab if he had not owned a dagger. 
We can save just one-half of the conse- 
quences of our sins by avoiding the tempta- 
tions which lead to them. Many a murderer 
would have been saved his shameful death 
upon the gallows, if he had not had about his 
person, at the time of his anger, some weapon 
or instrument of death. Cruelty grows upon 
us before we know it. One of the noblest 
societies of our land is the great Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This 



The Cruel Sons. 31 

society can arrest angry teamsters for beat- 
ing their horses unmercifully. It establish- 
es fountains for the poor, thirsty horses to 
drink at, and in many ways takes away the 
instruments of cruelty out of the hands of 
those who do not know how to be kind to 
dumb animals. 

One of the first blessings which Jesus ut- 
tered in his Sermon on the Mount, is the 
blessing on the merciful. " Blessed are the 
merciful," he said," for they shall obtain mer- 
cy." Implements of kindness teach us to be 
kind: but instruments of cruelty will make 
us as they made Simeon and Levi — hard- 
hearted, cruel sons. 

II. 

Secondly. — Cruel children always go to- 
gether into cruelty. 

It is a very singular thing how children 
always love to have "secrets." Sometimes 
these secrets are good, and sometimes they 
are bad. Sometimes they lead the way to a 
pleasant surprise, as the secret of a birthday ' 



32 A Father's Blessing. 

present, or the secrets of Christmas time; 
and at other times they lead the way to mis- 
chief and sorrow. 

Now it is very evident that Simeon and 
Levi had got, at a certain period in their life, 
into some great trouble. They had some 
plot or intrigue, some scheme of mischief or 
secret conspiracy which they kept to them- 
selves, and out of this plot there grew a quar- 
rel, and the result of it all was that they 
killed a man and digged down some stone 
wall over which they had been struggling. 

There is an old saying that it takes two to 
make a quarrel. It is very difficult for a per- 
son to have a secret plot or conspiracy all to 
one's self. When we go into mischief and 
cruelty, we always go in company. It is very 
hard to be cruel without some instrument of 
cruelty in our hands, and without some com- 
panions, to share the blame of sin with us. 

Cruel people always have an instrument of 
cruelty, and some secret of cruelty, and some 
cruel companions to help bear them out in 
their wicked ways. This was the way it was 



The Cruel Sons. 33 

with Simeon and Levi. And this is the way 
it has always been with cruel people in the 
world. 

In the days of James the First of England, 
there was a plot among*.certain nobles to blow 
up the House of Parliament, and bring in new 
rulers of the kingdom. One of the principal 
characters in this conspiracy was a noble 
names Catesby. He wanted to blow up all 
the members of the House of Lords, with the 
exception of a certain friend of his named 
Lord Monteagle. 

So he wrote Lord Monteagle a letter, telling 
him he had better keep away from the 
Houses of Parliament on a certain day. " For 
God and man," said Catesby in his letter, 
" have concurred to punish the wickedness of 
the times." This letter seemed so suspicious 
that Lord Monteagle showed it to some of 
his friends. They began to hunt about for 
suspicious-looking persons; and on going 
down into the cellar of the House of Lords, 
they discovered an evil-looking man, whose 
name was Guy Fawkes, about to light a slow 



34 A Father's Blessing. 

match which communicated with a number 
of barrels of gunpowder. This plot was call- 
ed the Gunpowder Plot. The 5th day of 
November, the day on which Guy Fawkes 
was discovered, was called " Guy Fawkes' 
day," and ever afterwards, the boys of Eng- 
land used to keep the day, as our boys keep 
the Fourth of July, by dressing up an image 
to look like Guy Fawkes. Then after march- 
ing Tibout with him for a time, they would 
take him to a bonfire to be burned. 

Now this famous gunpowder plot in En- 
glish history, shows us what is meant by 
a conspiracy of cruel people — such as the 
plot which Simeon and Levi had. There was 
" a secret and an assembly," and " instruments 
of cruelty," and " anger," and "self-will," and 
companionship in this cruel plot. 

My dear children, let me beg you not to 
have " secrets," or " instruments of cruelty," 
or companions, if these lead you into anger 
and self-will. 

Remember the second lesson of our sub- 
ject to-day. It is like the old proverb, " birds 



The Cruel Sons. 35 

of a feather flock together." Do not forget 
this lesson. Cruel children always go togeth- 
er into mischief. 

III. 

Thirdly. — Cruel children are always gov- 
erned by their passions. 

The older we grow the more truly we find 
that our passions are fearful companions. 
We must keep them under control all the 
way through life. If they ever get the mas- 
tery over us, they will act like runaway 
horses and will dash us to pieces. 

A furnace to an engine makes it go, so long 
as the fires are held under control. But the 
moment the fires cease to obey the engineer, 
that moment there is danger ahead. 

The volcanic outburst, the hurricane at 
sea, the cyclone on land are the passions of 
nature, and are pictures of the passions with- 
in us. What a description of our evil nature 
is this verse of our text to-day. " Cursed be 
heir anger for it was fierce, and their wrath 
for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob 



36 A Father's Blessing. 

and scatter them in Israel." I suppose you 
have all read that old story of little Red Rid- 
ing Hood. Well, you remember how the 
wolf, in the grandmother's clothes, disguised 
himself until the night-time came, in order 
to eat up little Red Riding Hood. He 
waited a long time for his prey, but at last 
the cruel wolf showed himself. And our 
fierce and cruel passions wait a long time 
until the right moment comes for them to 
bite and devour their prey. They may be 
disguised now, as a cat's claws are hidden 
under their velvety fur, when she purs under 
the stroking she receives, but when any 
sudden temptation comes, out will come the 
evil passions, as the cat's claws come out 
whenever a dog bounces into her presence. 

There was once an old German father 
who tried to make something good and use- 
ful out of his boy. But the son was an 
artist, and liked to dream and paint and skip 
his day's work on the farm whenever he could 
do so. 

At last, just before his son left him to go 



The Cruel Sons. 37 

to Paris, where he was about to study art, 
the old father said to him : — 

" Tony, my son, remember this last advice 
of your old father. Our passions are our 
greatest enemies. What we want to do is to 
be able to command them. The discipline 
of the human will is the secret of durable 
conquests and long happiness. Tony, I have 
always loved the crowing of the cock. It 
announces the day, and chases away the 
phantoms of the night. The sound resem- 
bles a war-cry. It admonishes us to spend 
our lives in fighting against ourselves/' 

A year or two after this, when his .father 
had died, Tony, now a rising young artist in 
Paris, was tempted by his companions to join 
a band of gamblers, who were making money 
at the expense of foreigners in Paris. One 
night, when he was lying awake, thinking 
over in his mind whether or not he should go 
with these bad companions, he heard a cock 
crow. Like the crowing of the cock which 
brought to Simon Peter's memory the words 
of Jesus, the sound of the crowing brought 



38 A Father's Blessing. 

back to Tony the last words of his honest old 
father. That morning crow sounded to him 
like a voice from his father's grave, and it 
turned the scale of his will. He said no, to 
his tempters, and gained the victory over the 
evil passions within him. 

Let us learn the great lesson of Jacob's 
judgment upon his cruel sons, that cruel 
children are those who instead of riding their 
passions are governed by them. 

IV. 

The fourth and last lesson of our subject is, 
that cruel children are always left to them- 
selves. Jacob said of Simeon and Levi, who 
could not control their cruel tempers : 

" I will divide them in Jacob and scatter 
them in Israel." These sons of Jacob were 
not wanted by their brethren. The other 
sons would rather be alone than have these 
cruel fellows keep company with them, with 
their instruments of cruelty about them. 
Cruel children are always left alone. Boys 
who crowd, kick, pinch, tease and use their 



The Cruel Sons. 39 

friends for pin cushions, into whom they can 
run twisted pins, are not agreeable com- 
panions. 

Every now and then, as we walk through 
the streets of our cities, we see in the vari- 
ous store-windows the sign, "Boy wanted." 
But boys who keep instruments and habits 
of cruelty about them are never wanted. 
Nobody cares for the company of those cruel 
sons except Satan. But they are just what 
he wants. Satan is always after the Simeon 
and Levi kind of children. 

As we grow older, my dear children, life 
becomes a very lonely thing. We grow 
away from our friends ; and our friends 
die. Our parents are taken from us, and 
new people appear who do not care anything 
for us. We want above all things else to 
keep our friends, and not to lose them. 

And there is no way by which we can keep 
our friends by our side so surely as by using 
kind words and doing kind deeds for them. 
But harsh words and unkind actions are 
never, never forgotten. 



40 A Father's Blessing. 

Eemember then, I beg yon, my dear child- 
ren, these four lessons which we learn from 
the judgment of Jacob upon his cruel sons, 
Simeon and Levi. 

Cruel children always seek for instruments 
of cruelty. 

Cruel children always go together into 
mischief. 

Cruel children are always governed by 
their passions ; and 

Cruel children are always left to them- 
selves. 



Poor old Jacob could not say anything 
good about these two cruel sons when he 
came to die. What will our friends say of 
us when we pass away ? Will they utter a 
blessing over us for our kindness, or will they 
pronounce a judgment on us for our sins ? 



ni. 

THE BLESSING OF JUDAH ; or, 
"THE SUCCESSFUL SON." 

u Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. 
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy 
father's children shall bow down to thee." — Genesis 
slix. 8. 

GREAT French wit once said, "Suc- 
cess always succeeds." We may say of 
course it does, but the wonderful thing about 
success is that we do not recognize it as such 
until it does succeed. There is something 
very singular about success. We cannot de- 
scribe it. We cannot predict it. We cannot 
tell exactly in what it consists, but we can 
all see it and feel it. It is something which 
we can feel even if we cannot describe it. 
Judah was the successful son in his father's 

family. Everything he did seemed to suc- 

(41) 



42 A Father's Blessing. 

ceed. The tribe of Judah grew to be the 
most powerful of all the tribes, and finally 
stood for the entire Kingdom of Israel. 

And it was because Jacob the father of 
this successful son Judah, saw by prophesy 
all his boy's future greatness, that he uttered 
these words of blessing over his head, "Judah, 
Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise* 
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine ene- 
mies. Thy father's children shall bow down 
before Thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from 
the prey my son thou art gone up ; he stooped 
down, he couched as a lion, and as an old 
lion: who shall rouse him up?" 

There is a successful son in almost every 
family. Somehow or other he manages to 
succeed while the others fail and flounder 
about in their efforts. No one can tell just 
how this is, or just why it is, but the fact re- 
mains that it is so. Brothers and sisters may 
criticise and find fault with this Judah, but 
still he goes on succeeding every time, while 
the rest of them only talk about success and 
strive in every way to secure it. 



The Successful Son. 43 

In the family of Jacob, Judah's brethren 
may have said that it was all luck on his 
part, and that he was peculiarly fortunate 
in everything he accomplished. But the old 
patriarch Jacob knew better than this. He 
said that Judah would not be lucky but suc- 
cessful. He saw in his boy before him, the 
elements of that success which in after years 
would make him famous. And so the old 
man uttered this blessing upon his boy : 

" Judah, Thou art he whom thy brethren 
shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck 
of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall 
bow down to thee." 

I want to speak to you to-day in this ser- 
mon on " The Successful Son," about the dif- 
ference between luck and success. 

I. 

First of all I would say — Luck waits foi 
the opportunity to come to us; success goes 
and finds the opportunity. 

For instance here is a colony of bees and a 
group of grasshoppers. It is summer time. 



44 A Father's Blessing. 

They are all alike, singing and buzzing in 
the meadow. The grasshoppers are lazy in- 
dolent fellows, while the bees are as busy as 
they can be. The grasshoppers take no care 
for the morrow ; the bees on the other hand 
are laying up honey all the day for the win- 
ter's use in the hive. The grasshoppers wait 
for the honey to come to them, and the con- 
sequence is they will starve in the winter 
time. The bees go hard to work to find the 
honey, and the result of their labor is that 
they will be fed in the hive while their neigh- 
bors, the grasshoppers, will be dying of star- 
vation. That is the difference between wait- 
ing for luck to come to one, and going out 
to find one's luck in honest labor. 

There were two boys once, named Jack 
and Kichard, whose father set aside a plot of 
ground for them to take care of. He prom- 
ised them a reward, if their gardens looked 
well at the end of the season. 

Jack used to go and look at his garden 
every little while, and resolve that by and by, 
when he saw anything to do in it he would 



The Successful Son. 45 

do it. Kichard, on the other hand, trimmed 
every plant and tree; weeded the beds, 
cleared off all the potato bugs, and never let 
the weeds get a single week's growth in ad- 
vance of him. At the end of the summer 
their father took a walk with the boys in their 
gardens. " Why Jack," said the father, u you 
are no kind of a gardener, look at the weeds 
in your garden bed ! " 

" That's just what I always said," replied 
Jack, " Richard is always lucky in his garden- 
ing ; besides his soil is richer than mine, and 
things grow in it better than they do with 
me." 

"Nonsense," replied his father, "what you 
call Richard's luck is his honest toil, and 
what you call your poor soil is your own idle- 
ness. So Richard gets the Waterbury watch 
I promised to the best gardener." Now, my 
dear children, we must all be very careful 
how we confound our own stupidity with bad 
luck, and get into the way of calling the hard 
work of others their good luck. 

Take for instance the man in our Lord's 



16 A Father's Blessing. 

parable of the talents, who hid his one talent 
in a napkin. The other servants in that par- 
able did something with their talents. They 
went out of their narrow little life at home 
and accomplished something. They did not 
wish for a great find of good luck to come to 
them. But the man with one talent did 
nothing. He waited and waited for the 
opportunity to come to him, instead of going 
bravely to seek the opportunity. And the 
Lord in the parable called him a wicked and 
slothful servant, because he trusted to some 
sort of good luck coming to him, instead of 
going to find the opportunity of working. 
Kemember this first lesson of our subject, the 
difference between luck and success. Luck 
waits for the opportunity to come to us; suc- 
cess goes and finds the opportunity. 

It 

Secondly. — Luck is the weapon of the gam- 
bler ; work is the weapon of the honest man. 

We never want to be considered successful 
in any dishonest way. To deceive or to be 



The Successful Son. 47 

selfish, or to be dishonest and thereby to gain 
an end, is not to be successful. Success 
which is gained at the expense of the right 
or by stamping one's conscience under foot 
is not success. But at the same time we 
want to remember that success is something 
which can be earned, and is not alone some- 
thing to be waited for. 

There are a great many people in the world 
who believe that they -must wait until good 
luck comes to them. Now, my dear children, 
all such people are mere gamblers. They 
have no honest tools. All the instruments 
they have are dice and cards and tricks of 
hand. People who believe in luck, and wait 
for luck, and count upon luck, are, in spirit, 
gamblers. They are waiting for success to 
come to them. 

The Judah-like people on the other hand 
are those who earn their own success. They 
do not believe that they are born under lucky 
or unlucky stars; or that they were or were 
not born With a silver spoon in their mouth. 
They work their way up to power by their 



48 A Father's Blessing. 

own exertions. Now, my dear children, you 
will find out that there are two things which 
mark the successful people in the world. 

First of all — the Judah-like men and wom- 
en of the world pay careful attention to the 
little things of life. It is the little things of 
life which go to make up the great things. 
It is attention to the little details, which, 
without making us fussy or small-minded, 
will help to make us careful and thorough 
and systematic. And then secondly — the 
Judah-like men and women of the world who 
are successful are always marked by indo- 
mitable perseverance. The bull-dog is the 
strongest of all dogs, simply because when 
he gets a grip on another dog he never lets 
go until one or the other is dead. The other 
day I was looking at some prize bull-dogs 
which were worth five hundred dollars a 
piece. It seemed to me as if they must be 
tired of holding up their big jaws, they 
looked so heavy. But it was their big jaws 
which gave them their power over all the 
other dogs. 



The Successful Son. 49 

And the one thing which made Gen. Grant 
the Judah that he was among ail the other 
generals of the war, was the fact that he held 
on amid all sorts of difficulties, and never 
was beaten, because he never knew when he 
was beaten. When he was a boy, at school, 
it was said that he never walked back to the 
place that he started from, but always walked 
around the place until he got back again to 
the place from which he started out. 

Attention to the little matters and bull- 
dog perseverance are the two signs of the 
Judahs in the world. The Judah men do 
not trust to luck: they depend upon their 
own exertions in order to achieve success. 

III. 

Thirdly. — Luck finds fault with its own 
instruments; success never blames its own 
tools. 

You know, it is said that it is the poor 
workman who blames his tools. 

When the lucky man begins to be unlucky 
he instantly goes to work to curse his lot 



50 A Father's Blessing. 

and his surroundings, and his family. The 
successful man, on the other hand, does not 
blame his instruments; he looks into his 
s own character to see if he cannot find the 
cause of all his trouble. There is an old 
song in Dr. Watts' Nursery Hymns which I 
shall never forget. It begins, 

"'lis the -voice of the sluggard, 
I heard him complain, 
You have waked me too soon, 
I must slumber again." 

The sluggard finds fault with the clock. 
But the clock is all right. The sun is all 
right. The daylight is all right. The fault 
is with the sleepy man who does not want to 
get up. When I hear people going about 
complaining of their friends, and their rela- 
tions, and the place where they live, and the 
kind of work they have to do, I always make 
up my mind that the trouble is with their 
own works, in their own characters, and not 
with the outside world. Depend upon it, 
my dear children, people who continually 
blame their tools have never had the bless- 



The Successful Son. 51 

ing which came upon Judah descend upon 
them. Their fathers' children will never 
bow down to them, because they themselves 
have never bowed down to honest labor. 
They have bowed to pleasure, not to duty. 

IV. 

Fourthly and lastly. — I would say that 
luck is the spoiled child of Fortune; success 
is the child of honest toil. 

A spoiled child grows after a while to be 
a great nuisance about the house. We can 
put up with it for a short time, but we soon 
grow tired of its waywardness and its 
whims. 

We all need to be disciplined in order to 
bring forth any good results in our life and 
character. 

If we do not learn to obey we can never be 
fit to command. If we do not learn to throw 
aside this idea of being lucky; if we keep 
waiting for Nature to be making us hand- 
some presents all the time; if we get into 
the way of expecting a run of luck instead 



52 A Father's Blessing. 

of doing honest work ourselves,* we will wait 
in vain for true success to come to us. We 
must work : we must toil : we must be pa- 
tient: we must be persevering if we would 
win true success in life. Success is a trained 
and dutiful child: it is born out of honest 
toil. Luck is the spoiled child of .fortune, 
and can never be counted upon in any enter- 
prise. 

Remember, then, my dear children, these 
four lessons of our subject to-day. 

I. Luck waits for the opportunity to come 
to us; success goes and finds the opportu- 
nity. 

II. Luck is the weapon of the gambler; 
work is the weapon of the successful man. 

III. Luck finds fault with its own in- 
struments; success never blames its own 
tools. 

IV. Luck is the spoiled child of Fortune; 
success is the child of honest toil. 

H Judah, Thou art he whom thy brethren 
shall praise. Thy father's children shall 
bow down to thee." 



The Successful Son. 53 

This was the old man's blessing upon 
Judah, the successful son of the family. 

His brethren may have said that he was 
lucky, but the old Jacob said that he was 
successful. And his success came to him 
not because he had a run of luck, but be- 
cause he knew how to take hold of the prob- 
lem of living. Children ! do not crave luck, 
or fortune ; crave success, and see to it that you 
earn it, as Judah did, 

" The Successful Son." 



IT. 

THE BLESSING OF ZEBULON; 
or, "THE SAILOR SON." 

"Zebulon shall dwell at tlie haven of the sea : and 
he shall he for an haven of ships, and his border shall 
be unto Zidon." — Genesis xlix. 13. 

'ANY people are what they are, not 
so much by anything which they 
themselves have done, as by the accidents or 
surroundings of their position. People who 
live among the mountains have a character 
of their own, as the Swiss and the Tyrolese, 
and the highlanders of the Scottish moun- 
tains in Europe, or the Green Mountain boys 
and the Kocky Mountain settlers in our own 
land. On the other hand, people who live on 
the seashore have their own separate and 
distinct character, as the fishermen of Nan- 
tucket, or the " Cape Cod folks," and the peo- 

(55) 



56 A Father's Blessing. 

pie from " down East," on the coast of Maine. 

Now this son, Zebulon, who received his 
dying father's blessing, was one ' of these 
accidental characters. He was what he was, 
not because of anything which he himself 
had done, but he was simply and alone that 
which his surroundings made him. He took 
on the character of the country in which 
he lived, and was what he was, because his 
lot of land in Canaan was what it was. 

You know that the lizard, called the cha- 
meleon, is remarkable for the fact that he 
ibakes on the color of the object on which he 
stands. If he is climbing up the trunk of a 
tree he will have a brown color. If he is 
nestling among the green leaves of the grass, 
he will appear green. 

And some people in this world are very 
much like the chameleon. They reflect the 
objects which are around them. 

This Zebulon was one of these accidental 
kind of people. He did not give character 
to the country in which he lived. His coun- 
try imparted its character to him. 



The Sailor Son. 57 

The territory which was assigned to the 
tribe, or clan, of Zebnlon, extended on the 
northern part of Palestine, from the lake of 
Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea. 

In this way the people of this tribe of Zeb- 
nlon touched two kinds of life on the water : 
the inner boating life of the lake district of 
Galilee, and the outer or broader life of the 
Mediterranean Sea. 

The hill country of the North was about 
them on every side, and the boundaries of 
the tribe extended to the inner waters of the 
lake, and to the outer waters of the ocean. I 
want to speak to you to-day about the bless^ 
ing on 

"THE SAILOE SON." 

Sailors have a character of their own, and 
are what is called " cosmopolitan.** 

This is a big word, but it means a citizen 
of the whole world, one who is at home all 
over the world. A cosmopolitan is one who 
is at home in any part of the world. A pro- 
vincial is one who is at home only in his own 
province or locality. City people are apt to 



58 A Father's Blessing. 

be cosmopolitans; country people, on the 
other hand, are very apt to be provincial or 
narrow-minded. 

The Jews were not fond of going about 
much. They liked to stay at home. The 
sea was always to them a terrible place. 
They did not like to travel over it. The 107th 
Psalm is filled with a terrified Jew's descrip- 
tion of a storm at sea, and shows us the way 
in which the Jews regarded the ocean. 

But the people of the tribe of Zebulon had 
to do with two kinds of water, the great ships 
on the ocean as well as the little boats on the 
Galilean lake, so that the children of Zebulon 
were acquainted with both the outer cosmo- 
politan world and the inner provincial world. 
The prophet Isaiah speaks in that beautiful 
lesson which is always read upon Christmas 
day of "the land of Zebulon by the way of 
the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the na- 
tions." 

And thus it came to pass that the tribe of 
Zebulon had a country or provincial life, and 
it had a city or cosmopolitan life. It touched 



The Sailor Son. 59 

the lake country, and it touched the sea-coast 
country. And it was the character of its ter- 
ritory which gave character to the people 
who lived in it. 

We learn three things from the blessing of 
Jacob upon Zebulon, the sailor or the cosmo- 
politan son. 



First — We must remember that there are 
other people besides ourselves. 

There is an old Russian proverb which 
says, "There are other people beyond the 
mountains." If you have ever lived in a 
place where there are mountains around you 
on every side, you will remember how these 
mountains seem to shut out the outside world, 
and seem to shut in the people who live in 
the valley all to themselves. Now it is a 
well-established fact, that people who never 
go away from home get into the way of be- 
coming very narrow-minded. Not seeing 
other people they forget that there are other 
people and other ways of living, and judge 



60 A Father's Blessing. 

everybody by their own standard of living. 
They forget that " there are other people be. 
yond the mountains." 

Artists, musicians, ministers, and newspa. 
per men very frequently forget that there are 
other artists, musicians, ministers, and news- 
papers " beyond the mountains." They be- 
come like the inhabitants of the tribes of Is- 
rael which never touched either the waters 
of the inland lake, or the waters of the outer 
sea, as Zebulon did when he was " a haven 
for ships." 

There was a French painter once who nev- 
er went away from his own little town. He 
would not go to Paris to see the other paint- 
ers' works, and did not care for any one's 
pictures but his own. One day he was la- 
menting to some friends who w r ere in his 
study the great decline in the present world 
of painting. 

" Zere air only zree great painters left in 
ze vorhld now T ," he said, with a sigh. 

" Who are these ?" asked his friend. 

" I am one" said the village painter, placing 



The Sailor Son. 61 

his hand upon his breast, " I have forgotten 
ze names of ze other two." 

That painter had forgotten the first lesson 
of our subject to-day. He had forgotten 
that there are other people besides our- 
selves, other people who live beyond the 
mountains. When boys go away from their 
little primary schools to boarding-school or 
college, it seems very hard to them not to be 
treated in the same petted way in which they 
were treated at home. But we always find 
out our true position in life, not by thinking 
of what we are at home, but by finding out 
what we really are in the hands of our fellow- 
men. Many a little bantam rooster, crowing 
on his own hillock, has thought, when he 
never left his own barnyard, that he was the 
finest bird in all the world. But when he 
has mingled with the Shanghai lords of other 
barnyards, and has had a taste of the strug- 
gle of life, with torn comb and drooping 
feathers, he comes back to his own roost a 
humbler and a wiser fowl. We have learnt a 
great lesson in life, my dear children, when 



62 A Father's Blessing. 

we have found out thisZebulon trait of charac- 
ter, this first lesson of our subject to-day, that 
there are other people besides ourselves, 

II. 

Secondly. — We are to remember that we 
are to carry blessings to others. It is a great 
sight to see the full-rigged ships with their 
square sails coming up the harbor to the 
dock, laden with every variety of cargo. 
Eice, fruits, East India goods, how many good 
things come to us over the sea from abroad. 
How many boys of the tribe of Zebulon must 
have watched to see the great galleys come 
over the blue Mediterranean Sea, and the 
little fishing-boats come lazily ashore across 
the lake of Galilee ! And how the caravans 
with camels and dromedaries must have gone 
through the country of Zebulon from the 
lake shore to the sea-side, carrying all sorts 
of commodities to the different towns and 
villages, which had been taken from the holds 
of the big ships and the little boats ! But 
the people of Zebulon, no doubt, sent back 



The Sailor Son. 63 

their own products in return for these goods 
received. And, rny dear children, we must 
remember that we are not to receive cargoes 
of good things from others, and are then to 
go out to others, as ships go when they have 
nothing to carry, and take out simple bal- 
last! 

There is a great deal of this carrying of 
mere ballast to others who have brought 
rich and generous cargoes of good things to 
us. This world is fashioned on the principle 
of exchange. We give something.in life, and 
we get something in return. 

It will not do to be receiving continually 
good things from others, and then never to 
carry any blessing to them. If you go into 
a corn exchange or a broker's office, you will 
find that the principle of fair exchange is the 
great ruling principle of the business world. 

u What will you give ? " and 
" What will you take ? » 

are the two first questions in the business 
man's catechism. 



64 A Father's Blessing. 

Now then, what are you giving to others 
in return for their blessings to you? The 
boys and girls of the tribe of Zebulon were 
very familiar with the things which came in 
trade from the ships across the sea. They 
were also very familiar with the things which 
went out in exchange trade. Children! 
What are you giving in exchange for the 
kindnesses you receive, as this sailor son, 
Zebulon, gave things as well as received 
them ? 

You say you are not yet of age ; you can- 
not work or do a day's hard labor ; you say 
you have to go to school and have no time 
left to do anything great for others ! This is 
all true, but are you doing anything ? You 
say what can we do ? 

Well! I will tell you. 

You can love your parents and your broth- 
ers and sisters; you can be affectionate, kind, 
tender, and obedient. You can be willing to 
oblige; you can be ready to help those at 
home who have done so much for you. This 
is a good honest kind of exchange; such as 



The Sailor Son. 65 

the sailors of one country take out to the peo- 
ple of some other country. 

All this you can give in exchange to your 
teachers and parents for all that they have 
done for you. 

Dear children, do not make excuses all the 
time ! Do not have reasons for not doing 
things when you are asked to do them at 
home. Some boys put logs, and stones, 
and stumps in the way whenever they are 
wanted to go on an errand. It is very 
often easier to do a thing oneself than to 
have to explain it over and over again to 
unwilling ears. 

Kemember the second lesson of this Zebu- 
Ion sermon to-day. 

Don't take ballast out in exchange for kindness 
received. 

Eemember that according to God's great 
law of exchange we are to carry blessings to 
others as well as have others bring their 
blessings to us ! 



6Q A Father's Blessing. 

III. 

Thirdly, we must remember that other 
people can bring their blessings to us. 

The older I grow the more deeply I feel 
that it is a great fault not to like people and 
to want to be with them. 

Other people are necessary to us, and can 
bring us a blessing. Here was this tribe of 
Zebulon with its haven for ships. Other 
people came to Zebulon more than they did 
to the other tribes. They brought with them 
new ideas, and larger views of things, than 
they had in their own little tribe life. 

There was a boy once at school named Carl, 
who quarrelled with all his companions, and 
made up his mind that he would cross off his 
list of friends every one he quarrelled with. 
At last, in the midst of the long winter term, 
he found out that he had quarrelled with them 
all, and that there was really not one left for 
him to play with. v 

At last one day the teacher found him look- 
ing through a knot-hole in the fence at the 
other boys playing ball in the play-ground. 



The Sailor Son. 67 

" What are you doing, Carl ? " asked his 
teacher. 

•' I am looking at the other boys play, sir," 
he replied. 

" Why don't you play with them 9 " asked 
his teacher. 

" Because I'm mad at them all, and vowed 
I wouldn't play with them ! " said Carl. 

" Well then," said his teacher, " why do 
you look at them play instead of playing by 
yourself." 

Carl was silent a moment and then replied, 
" because I'm so awfully tired of myself." 

We very soon get tired of ourselves in this 
world, my dear children, and it is a great 
help to us at times to feel that we can " play 
with " other people and can have them com- 
fort us. 

Do not despise other people; other people 
often bring great blessings to us, as they did 
to the tribe of Zebulon with his "haven for 
ships." 

So you see Zebulon after all, with his " ha- 
ven for ships," teaches us three lessons. 



68 A Father's Blessing. 

First — There are other people besides our- 
selves. 

Second. — We must carry blessings to other 
people. 

Third. — Other people can carry their bless- 
ings to us. 

Remember these lessons from the land of 
Zebulon. 

Jesus said, " The field is the world — go ye 
therefore into all the world and preach the 
gospel to every creature." 

When the apostles began to preach they 
began at Jerusalem, but their words went 
out into all the world, and have come down 
to us. Jesus did not come to save a prov- 
ince, he came to save the world. 

To be large-minded and large-hearted, to 
avoid narrowness, bigotry, cant, and conceit, 
to remember others, to do for others, and not 
to be little, vain, or merely provincial in 
character, are some of the lessons we learn 
from the blessing on Zebulon, 

"The Sailor Son." 



THE BLESSING OF ISSACHAR; 
or, "THE UNAMBITIOUS SON." 

"Issachar is a strong ass couching down between 
two burdens : And he saw that rest was good, and the 
land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to 
bear, and became a servant unto tribute."— Genesis 
xlix. 14. 

jTjft^HE dying Jacob did not mean to call 
3& his son a bad name when he said, 
" Issachar is a strong ass couching down 
between two burdens." The Jews never 
liked fast horses or fast ships. They were 
very much afraid of being run away with by 
horses and of being sunk by ships. So it 
came to pass that they used the ass instead 
of the horse, and did not venture upon the 
sea. In this way the ass came to be regard- 
ed as a great comfort and convenience. 



70 A Father's Blessing. 

They would load him up with packages 
in the panniers on his sides, and would then 
start him off on his journey. As the ass had 
no temptation to run away, he pleased the 
Jews, and came at last to stand for the idea 
of the family pack-horse. All the bundles — 
packages, travelling utensils, food, provender, 
bales of merchandise, satchels of clothing, 
furniture, women, children, and sick people 
— were put .upon the shoulders of the ass. 

The ass carried all the family loads. He 
was the pack-horse — the beast of burden for 
the family. 

So then what Jacob meant by calling his 
son Issachar a strong ass was simply this : 

He meant that Issachar would prove to 
be one of those persons who would go 
through life in a down-hearted, depressed, 
unambitious, poor-relation sort of way; that 
he would take what he could get, and would 
not expect great results; that he would labor 
and work and be the pack-horse of the fami- 
ly, and would be content with getting what 
he could out of the soil, and would leave the 



The Unambitious Son. 71 

rest to others, and would give up all thought 
of making any better provision for himself. 

And so. these words of the dying Jacob 
came to be spoken, "He saw the land that 
it was good, and rest that it was pleasant, 
and bowed his shoulders to bear and became 
a servant unto tribute." 

The lot given to the tribe of Issachar in 
the distribution of the land of Canaan extend- 
ed from the river Jordan almost to the Med- 
iterranean Sea. The lot of the tribe of 
Issachar was situated between the tribes of 
Zebulon and Manasseh, and consisted. of a 
very rich and fertile soil. 

The plain of Jezreel and the valley of 
Megiddo were found in the fruitful district 
of the tribe of Issachar. Agriculture, pas- 
turage, and stock raising were the employ- 
ment of the people of this tribe. It was_ a 
country which was very, very much like the 
fertile fields of Pennsylvania. Only the 
people of Issachar seemed to have no spirit. 
The judgment of Jacob upon the head of the 
tribe seems to have been realized in its later 



72 A Father's Blessing. 

descendants. This down-heartedness and 
lack of spirit seems to have clung to them 
all their days. 

They had no high ideals; they had no 
ambition; they were perfectly content with 
the ordinary life which they led among the 
sheep and the cattle. They did not care to 
rise. They saw the land that it was good? 
and rest that it was pleasant, and they bow- 
ed their shoulders to bear and became ser- 
vants unto tribute. 

We learn three lessons from the blessings 
of Jacob on this Issachar, " The unambitious 
son." If we want to get the most out of our 
nature we must remember, 



That there are times in life when we must lay 
our burdens down. 

If you have ever seen a donkey with his 
two panniers, one on each side, jou will 
understand how hard it must be for him to 
lie down and get any rest, or ease, or com- 
fort with his burdens on his back. 



The Unambitious Son. 73 

A donkey can get no comfortable rest so 
long as his burdens are strapped upon his 
back. 

And there are a great many people in this 
world who never take the burdens off their 
own shoulders. They lie down to sleep and 
rise up to their new duties with their bur- 
dens on. They never ease themselves of 
their little worries or frets, and never take 
their daily harness off. 

You know how badly you feel when you 
have been sitting up all night with your 
clothes on, or when you have had a night's 
sleep on a lounge instead of going comforta- 
bly to bed for a good night's sleep. It is 
something like the feeling the cabman's 
horse had, when the cabman said that he 
never took him out of the shafts for fear he 
would fall down and never get into' the 
shafts again. 

" Issachar is a strong ass couching down 
between two burdens." 

How many people there are, and how 
many children there are, who are all the 



74 A Father's Blessing. 

time couching down between their burdens. 
They never lay down their loads; they never 
forget their cares. They go to bed with 
their worries and wake up with their worries, 
and have their petty little troubles tied about 
their necks all the time. There are house- 
keepers, and people who have plenty of 
statistics, and out-of-doors people who are 
always seen in the streets, and are always in 
a hurry, and walk very rapidly : and there 
are fretters and fumers, and whiners and 
whimperers, who are all the children of 
Issachar. They never take the panniers off 
their own bodies. They never lay their bur- 
dens down. 

We ought never to refuse to carry our own 
burdens, my dear children, only we ought to 
take time to ease ourselves of our heavy loads, 
and unstrap the harness of our daily duties. 
Care is a divine blessing to us. God gives 
us cares, and if we ask him for strength 
whereby to carry them, he will give us his 
help so that our cares will seem light to us. 
But if we do not have real cares we generally 



The Unambitious Son. 75 

have imaginary ones, and these are much 
harder to bear than the others. When 
God sends us troubles, he sends along with 
them grace whereby to bear them; when 
we give ourselves unnecessary troubles we 
have to bear them with our own strength 
alone. 

The first lesson we learn from the blessing 
upon Issachar is this : that there are times in 
life when we must lay our burdens down. 

If we want to get the most out of our na- 
ture we must remember, 

II. 

Secondly, that there are times in life, when 
we are tempted to think that what we have is 
good enough 

There are two kinds of ambition; one is 
good and the other is bad. There are two 
kinds of contentment, one is good and the 
other bad. 

The bad ambition consists in being dis- 
contented with the lot in which God has 
placed us. The good ambition consists in 



76 A Father's Blessing. 

being on the lookout for one's own improve- 
ment. 

The good contentment consists in waiting 
patiently in the place in which it is evident 
that God has put us. The bad contentment 
consists in settling down to a lower position 
than that which we are capable of filling. 

We must learn to be content with our lot; 
but we must also learn never to be content 
with our nature. We must learn, as the 
Catechism says, " to do our duty in that 
station of life to which it has pleased God to 
call us." But we must never rest content 
with our own weak nature: we must be try- 
ing every day to be better than we have been 
in the past. 

But the whole trouble with Issachar was 
that, when he saw the fat, fair, and fertile 
valleys which were to be his share of Canftan, 
he said, " This will do — this is good enough." 
" He saw that rest was good and the land 
that it was pleasant, and he bowed his 
shoulder to bear and became a servant unto 
tribute." 



The Unambitious Son. 77 

Now, there are a great many people in the 
world who belong to the tribe of Issachar. 

There are a great many boys and girls to- 
day who belong to the tribe of those who 
say, "This is good enough; this will do." 
There are a great many children to-day who 
have a lack of ambition, and do not try to 
get the best results out of their life and char- 
acter. Their parents have done a great deal 
for them, and they think that they can go 
on and work on from the point where their 
parents have left off. 

These are the boys and girls who are con- 
tent to be second-best at school ; who do not 
desire to "go up higher," but who think 
things are good enough as they are. 

"Where do you stand in your class, 
Bobby ? " asked a gentleman once of a little 
boy. 

"Next to head," replied Bobby. 

" Why, that is very good," answered the 
gentleman ; " I am glad to see you are so 
high up." 

Afterwards this gentleman found out that 



78 A Father's Blessing. 

there were three boys in this class, and that 
while Bobby was next to head, at the same 
time he was next to tail. But that contented 
Bobby, because he belonged to the tribe of 
Issachar. He was one of the boys who said 
that what he had was good enough. 

I was reading the other day General Grant's 
history of his own life. It is a wonderful 
book, and describes the great events of his 
life in a quiet, unpretending way, as if there 
was nothing very remarkable about them. 

But the wonderful thing about Grant's life 
was this, that at the age of forty, when he 
was a tanner at Galena, and enlisted for the 
war, he resolved to make himself over on the 
pattern of a better man than he had been be- 
fore. His life shows us the weak points in 
his early career, and it was because he recog- 
nized these weak spots in his early life that 
he knew just how to make himself strong in 
the places in which he had formerly been 
weak. 

Now one of his early weak points was this 
very point of our subject. You would not 



The Unambitious Son. 79 

believe it, but he shows clearly himself 
that when he was a boy he belonged to 
this very tribe of Issachar. He was one of 
those who said, " This will do-— this is good 
enough." 

When he was a cadet at West Point, he 
says, he was always some distance from the 
top of the class, and some distance from the 
tail. 

But after a while he graduated out of the 
tribe of the children of Issachar, and was 
never content until he had gained the most 
out of every duty which was laid upon him, 
and out of every position in which he was 
placed. 

Eemember, then, my dear children, this 
second lesson of our subject to-day. If we 
want to get the most out of our nature we 
must remember that there are times in life 
when we are tempted to think that what we 
have is good enough. 

If we want to get the most out of our na- 
ture we must remember, 



80 A Father's Blessing. 

III. 

Thirdly, tliat we can never he helpers to 
others while we are slaves to ourselves. 

Think of the difference between being a 
slave to others and of being free to do our 
own will. 

In Mrs. Stowe's wonderful book, " Uncle 
Tom's cabin," there is the story of a slave 
mother, Eliza — flying away, across the Ohio 
river, filled with blocks of ice, in winter 
time, to try and get up to Canada, where 
she could be free and be a true mother to her 
children. 

It is a very thrilling story; the officers are 
after her and the bloodhounds are after her, 
but she hurries on to get the river between 
her and her pursuers, so that she may fly 
away to a country where she can be the real 
mother to her children, simply because then 
she will not be a slave herself. 

And, my dear children, if we make slaves 
of ourselves to our own cares and worries 
and low views of things, we can never be 
helpers to others. 



The Unambitious Son. 81 

Because Issachar had no ambition to be 
better than his brethren he became poorer 
and worse off than they. They made a pack- 
horse of him, and put their bundles on him, 
and in this way " he bowed his shoulders to 
bear and became a servant unto tribute." 

Issachar was the " poor relation " of the 
twelve sons of Jacob. 

He was not bad like Simeon and Levi; he 
was not prosperous like Judah ; he was not 
good like Joseph. 

He simply " didn't get on." He was what 
is called "a ne'er do well." 

Now, the trouble with this kind of people 
is not that they are poor and down-hearted. 
The trouble with them is that they keep for- 
ever talking about their misery. 

They settle down at last like Issachar of 
old and keep the burdens strapped on them 
all the time, and succumb to their surround- 
ings — instead of rising above their surround- 
ings. 

My dear children, life is a great struggle 

and is filled with hard problems. After you 
6 



82 A Father's Blessing. 

have grown a little older, you will surely 
find this lesson out. 

Therefore let us try to make the best out of 
life and its surroundings, and not the worst ; 
and let us avoid the mistake of Issachar, 
Jacob's down-hearted, depressed, unambi- 
tious son. 

These then are the lessons which we learn 
from the blessing of Issachar: 

If we want to get the most out of our 
nature we must remember, 

1st. That there are times in life when we 
must lay our burdens down. 

2d. That there are times in life when we 
are tempted to think that what we have is 
good enough. 

3d. That we can never be helpers to 
others while we are slaves to our own 
selves. 

I do not think this was much of -a blessing 
— this blessing upon Issachar. But the 
trouble was not with Jacob who gave the 
blessing; the trouble was with Issachar; 
there wasn't anything to bless in him. 



The Unambitious Son. 83 

The whole trouble was with this lucky-go- 
easy, unambitious son. 

My dear children, let us all move our 
tents outside the boundaries of the tribe of 
Issachar, so that we may never deserve the 
judgment which was pronounced upon 
Issachar, 

" The Unambitious Son." 



VI. 

THE BLESSING ON DAN, « THE 
DECEITFUL SON." 

" Dan shall be a serpent by the "way, an adder in the 
path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider fall- 
eth backward. I have waited for thy salvation, O 
Lord."— Genesis xlix. 17, 18. 

(HEEE is an old Turkish proverb which 
' Trust not the whiteness of his 
turban ; he bought the soap on credit." 

This means that even the Turk's clean 
turban is clean through deceit; the very 
soap which was bought to wash it clean was 
not paid for. 

Deceit is a terrible stain to get into one's 
blood. It seems at times as if there was no 
such thing as ever getting it out of the na- 
ture when it once gets in. It takes a very- 
firm grip, and holds on from generation to 
generation. 

(85) 



86 A Father's Blessing. 

Here in this family of Jacob's it took three 
or four generations to get the stain of deceit 
out of the blood. 

First of all, Jacob's mother, Rebecca, de- 
ceived Isaac, her husband, and secured the 
first bora's blessing for Jacob, when it be- 
longed to his brother Esau. 

Then Jacob deceived his father, and his 
Uncle Laban, and his brother Esau, and after 
him his son Dan became known for his mean, 
and tricky, and deceitful ways. 

And so it came to pass that the act of deceit- 
fulness on the part of Jacob's mother, Rebec- 
ca, worked its way out into his life and char- 
acter, and through him into the character of 
this tribe of Dan, — which tribe was always 
known for its habits of deceit, its great man, 
Samson, being the most mischievous, and 
tricky, and deceitful of all its children. 

1 was reading in the paper, the other day, 
a story about a little newsboy, who, to sell 
his paper, told a lie. The matter came up in 
Sunday-school. " Would you tell a lie for three 
cents ? " asked the teacher of one of the boys. 



The Deceitful Son. 87 

" No, ma'am ! " answered Dick very decided- 
ly. " For a dollar ? >'— " No, ma'am ! "— " For 
a thousand dollars?" Dick was staggered. 
A thousand dollars looked big. It would 
buy lots of things. While he was thinking 
another boy behind him roared out, ,: No, 
ma'am ! " — " Why not ? " asked the teacher. 
*' Because," said the boy, " when the thousand 
dollars is all gone, and all the things they have 
got with them are gone too, the lie is there all 
the same." That boy had got hold of the 
truth which the character of Dan teaches us. 
Deceit sticks. Now, this tribe of Dan, whose 
blessing or judgment, we have for our 
thoughts to-day, was the little State, the 
Rhode Island of the united Kingdom of Israel. 
It was a little tribe, with a very limited 
territory, and was situated to the north of 
the Sea of Galilee, right under the shadow 
of the snowy sides of Mount Hermon. The 
tribe of Dan was one which quarrelled a 
great deal, and which very soon in its history 
fell into idolatry. Samson, the strong man 
of the Old Testament, belonged to this tribe ; 



88 A Father's Blessing. 

but it did not have many great men, or 
achieve any distinction in the history of the 
Kingdom. 

It is the only tribe whose name is omitted 
from the list of those which are sealed in the 
book of the Revelation of St. John with the 
twelve thousand elect ones. 

" Of the tribe of Reuben was sealed twejve 
thousand. Of the tribe of Judah was sealed 
twelve thousand." And all the other tribes 
are named in this catalogue as having twelve 
thousand souls saved in Heaven. But Dan 
is never mentioned. The tribe of Dan is 
omitted altogether; there were none sealed 
from this tribe »at all. This is a very striking 
thought of the evil of deceit. 

Our subject to-day is the warning from 
41 Ths deceitful son." What do we learn 
from Dan ? 



First of all we learn that deceit is a rem- 
Qant of the beast nature within us. 
When the immortal Sidney was told that 



The Deceitful Son. 89 

he might save his life by telling a falsehood 
and denying his hand-writing, he answered, 
" When God hath brought me into a dilem- 
ma, in which I must assert a lie, or lose my 
life, he gives me a clear indication of my 
duty; which is to prefer death to falsehood." 

But no animal would prefer death to de- 
ceit, unless it be a highly educated dog. 

Beasts have an instinct within them to 
save themselves at all hazards, and deceive 
on purpose to save themselves. 

A cat deceives by her stealthy tread; a 
bird deceives — like the curlew and the 
marsh-bird when they want to save their 
nests. A hedgehog will fall over and make 
believe that he is dead on purpose to deceive 
a passer-by, and a ''possum up the gi^m- 
tree " will hang by the hour as if he were 
dead. To "play possum" has come, with 
the colored people of the South, to mean to 
deceive. " Don't trust him, massah," a slave 
boy would call out to his master, "don't 
trust him. He's only playing possum." 

If any of you children have ever read that 



90 A Father's Blessing. 

very interesting and amusing book, " Uncle 
Kemus," you will remember how Uncle 
Kemus used to tell the little children about 
u Brer Rabbit," and " Brer Fox," and " Brer 
Bear," and " Sis Cow." " Brer Eabbit " was 
always the one who deceived the other ani- 
mals, and got them into all sorts of scrapes 
with the " Tar Baby," and all the other 
pranks. 

The colored people in the old slave days 
which are described in " Uncle Kemus," 
always thought of " Brer Babbit," with his 
long ears and funny looking face as the em- 
bodiment of all that was tricky and mis- 
chievous. The Babbit was the Dan of all 
"the animal tribes. He deceived the other 
animals, so that they were always made sport 
of by the rabbit. 

Deceit is right enough when we find it 
among animals, for it is one of their natural 
weapons of defence; but whenever it crops 
out in our nature, we ought to rise up 
and put it down, and stamp on it, as we 
would upon a snake in the grass or fire 



The Deceitful Son. 91 

among shavings. Deceit is a remnant of the 
old serpent nature, the snake within us, and 
we ought to crush it out whenever it appears 
within us, or it will grow until it becomes to 
us a dreadful curse. 

II. 

Secondly. — We learn from the blessing 
upon Dan that deceitfulness is the trade- 
mark of the old serpent. 

When we say the old serpent, we mean 
Satan, the father of lies. Jesus said of the 
devil, " when he speaketh a lie he speaketh 
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of 
lies." 

Perjury and deceitfulness are the signs of 
a rotten character. I was reading the other 
day about a certain Ludovicus, who was 
king of Burgundy. He was taken prisoner, 
but was given his liberty upon promising not 
to make war again. Upon receiving his free- 
dom, he raised a stronger army than before. 
He was again overcome, and lost all. His 
eyes were plucked out, and these words were 



92 A Father's Blessing. 

branded upon his forehead : " This man was 
saved by clemency, and lost by perjury." 
His perjury was the trade-mark of his char- 
acter, and lost him his life. 

Honesty on the other hand is the trade- 
mark of all God's children, and always brings 
its own reward with it. 

In the days of the late rebellion there was 
a young volunteer who was expecting daily 
to be ordered to the seat of war. One day 
his mother gave him an unpaid bill with 
money, and asked him to pay it. When he 
returned home that night she said, " Did you 
pay the bill ? " — " Yes," he answered. In a 
few days the bill was sent in a second time. 
" I thought," said she to her son, " that you 
paid this." — " I really don't remember, moth- 
er; you know I've had so many things on 
my mind." — " But you said you did." — 
" Well," he answered, " if I said I did, I did." 
He went away, and the mother took the bill 
herself to the store. The young man had 
been known in town all his life, and 
what opinion was held of him this will show. 



The Deceitful Son. 93 

" I am quite sure," she said, " that my son 
paid this some days ago; he has been very 
busy since, and has quite forgotten about it; 
but he told me that day he had, and says if* 
he said then that he had, he is quite sure 
that he did."—" Well," said the man, " I for- 
got about it ; but if he ever said he dicT, he 
did." 

This trade-mark of honesty or deceit is 
found in us all. Like the trade-mark of 
Sheffield steel, or Gorham metal, or the mark 
of " Tiffany's " silver, or the water-mark in 
the paper of " Crane's " and " Weston's" cel- 
ebrated Dalton paper mills, the trade-mark 
of honesty or deceit is stamped upon our 
character and our faces, and marks us as 
the children of God or of the Devil. 

III. 

Thirdly. — Deceitfulness brings a curse to 
the person who uses it. 

It is said, you know, that curses are like 
chickens, they come home to roost. If you 
have ever watched a lot of chickens coming 



94 A Father's Blessing. 

back to the ben-house at night, you will re- 
member how slowly, but how surely, they 
find their way back. 

Now they stop a moment to scratch and 
pick up bits of food, and then they cluck and 
crow and chirrup to one another, but sooner 
or later they always get back to the hen- 
house before the sun goes down. 

Sometimes our Dan-like habits of deceit 
bring the evil returns in a very short space 
of time. 

Some years ago a young aspirant for office 
in Iowa drove up to a hotel, alighted and en- 
gaged a room. He desired his trunk taken 
to his room ; and, seeing a man passing whom 
he supposed to be the porter, he imperiously 
ordered him to take it up. The porter 
charged him twenty-five cents, which he paid 
with a marked quarter, worth only twenty 
cents. He then said, " You know Gov. 
Grimes ?"— " yes, sir ! "— " Well, take my 
card to him, and tell him I wish an interview 
at his earliest convenience." — "I am Gov. 
Grimes, at your service, sir." — "You — I — 



The Deceitful Son. 95 

that is, my dear sir, I beg — a — a thousand 
pardons! " — " None needed at all, sir," replied 
Gov. Grimes. "I was rather favorably im- 
pressed with your letter, and had thought 
you well suited for the office specified; but, 
sir, any man who would swindle a working 
man out of a paltry five cents would defraud 
the public treasury, had he an opportunity. 
Good evening, sir ! " 

The older I grow, my dear children, the 
more truly I feel that it is always better, 
wiser, and happier for us to be honest and 
straight-forward in everything we do, than 
to be tricky, underhanded, and deceitful. 
There is always a reward about honesty; 
there is always a curse about deceit. We 
always get punished when we try to deceive. 

No words are truer than those of the poet 
Scott, in his poem of u Marmion," — 

"O what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practice to deceive." 

Deceit is the trade-mark of Se.tan, and all 
Satan's tools are two-edged: they hurt the 



96 A Father's Blessing. 

person who uses them as well as the person 
against whom they are used. 

A young man went one evening to consult 
his minister respecting the situation which he 
filled in a large drapery establishment. His 
master required him to tell falsehoods about 
the goods, and to cheat the customers when- 
ever he could do so; and his conscience told 
him that this was wrong. His minister ad- 
vised him to refuse to act thus dishonestly. 
" I shall lose my place," said the young man. 
— "Then lose your place; don't hesitate a 
moment." — " I engaged for a year, and my 
year is not out." — " No matter ; you are ready 
to fulfil your engagement. Did you engage 
to deceive, to cheat, and lie ? " — " no, not 
at all." — " Then certainly you need have no 
hesitation through fear of forfeiting your 
place. If he sends you away because you 
will not do such things for him, you will 
know him to be a bad man, from whom you 
may be glad to be separated." — "I have no 
place to go to, and he knows it." — " I would 
go anywhere, do anything, dig potatoes, black 



The Deceitful Son, 97 

boots, sweep the streets for a living, sooner 
than yield to such temptations." — " I don't 
think I can stay there; but I don't know 
what to do or where to look." — " Look to 
God first, and trust in Him. Do you think 
..He will let you suffer, because out of regard 
to His commandments, you have lost your 
place ? Never. Such is not His way. Ask 
Him to guide you." The young man acted 
upon the advice given. He was dismissed 
from his situation, but he found another, 
where he established a character for integrity 
and promptness, and entered afterward into 
business for himself. He prospered, and is 
now a man of extensive property and high 
respectability. 

Depend upon it, my dear children, there is 
more power in the blessing of honesty than 
there is in the curse of deceit. 

IV. 

Fourthly. — Deceitfulness never brings us 

God's way of peace. 

When we are tempted to lie and deceive, 
7 



98 A Father's Blessing. 

and play the part of the serpent in the path, 
it is because we think we can gain some ad- 
vantage for ourselves, or can get ourselves 
out of some trouble. But we can never get 
good results by using bad means. We can 
never get straight ends by using crooked 
means. " That which is crooked cannot be 
made straight." 

There was a boy once who made up his 
mind that every time he did an unfair or 
dishonest act, or told a lie, he would drive a 
nail into a post by the barn. 

At the end of six months' time he found 
that one-third of the post was covered with 
nails. 

" Now Tom," said his father, " every time 
you win a victory over your temptation draw 
out a nail with the claw end of the hammer." 

So Tom went to work with the nail extrac- 
tor. In six months' time he called his father 
to look at the post. " See, father," said Tom, 
"I've got all the nails out at last." 

" Yes," replied his father, "you've got the 
nails all out, but the scars remain, you see." 



The Deceitful Son. 99 

The post was black with holes where the 
nails had been. 

And so it is with us, my dear children, 
every time we repent of onr sins, we draw 
the sin out, like the nail out of the post — but 
the scars of the holes remain. 

But God's way of peace is not to let us have 
any scars at all. And this is much better 
than our way of deceiving and then repent- 
ing of our deceit. 

If you get into scrapes, dear children, do not 
lie to get out of them. Walk out of them in 
an honest way. Don't be like the serpent in 
the path, which biteth the horse-heels so that 
the rider falls backward. 

These then are the lessons which we learn 
from Jacob's blessing upon Dan. 

1st. Deceit is a remnant of the beast nature 
within us. 

2d. Deceit is the trade-mark of the devil. 

3d. Deceit brings a curse to the person 
who uses it. 

/4th. Deceit never brings us God's way of 
peace. 



100 A Father's Blessing. 

Poor Dan, his was a worm-eaten, rotten 
character. He was a deceitful, dishonest son. 

If you have ever seen an old ship- wrecked 
hulk on the sea-shore, you will remember 
how the timbers and joists were worm-eaten, 
until they looked as soft as a sponge ; you 
could knock them into a hundred bits with 
the stick in your hand. 

Well ! in the same way a rotten and de- 
ceitful nature never can be trusted ! A worm- 
eaten timber is the very image of a worm- 
eaten character. 

What a description is this text of ours of a 
deceitful nature: 

"Dan shall be a serpent in the way; an 
adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, 
so that the rider falleth backward." - 

And I suppose it was because Jacob had 
learned that it was better to do right and 
leave the results in God's hands, than it was 
to be crafty, and tricky, and deceitful, that 
he added these final words, — 

" I have waited (or I have learned to wait) 
for thy salvation, Lord." 



VXI. 

THE BLESSING OF GAD, or, 
" THE PERSEVERING SON. 77 

" Gad, a troop shall overcome him : but lie shall over- 
come at the last." — Genesis xHx. 19. 

fT is a great art to know how to work one's 
way through a crowd. We get jostled 
back and forth as we try to work our way to 
the heart of the crowd, and at times it seems 
as if we should surely perish in the surging, 
crowding mass of our fellow-men. 

I was riding some time ago in the cars 
with an ex-Governor of Massachusetts, and 
we fell into a talk about the best way of work- 
ing oneself out to the front in a great con- 
course of men. 

My friend the Governor said, " the secret 

of it all is not to be in a hurry. One must 

not crowd or push or be in a hurry. One 

(101) 



102 A Father's Blessing. 

must wait until there comes an opening, and 
then quietly sidle into the opening; wait 
there a moment, then slip a step forward, 
wait again, and in this way quietly work for- 
ward to the front. 

As my friend the Governor had been a very 
successful man in politics, I thought his ad- 
vice was very good, and ever since that day 
I have known just how to work my way 
through what seemed at first sight to be an 
impenetrable crowd of men. 

Now this description of how to work one's 
way through a crowd is the exact description 
of this persevering son Gad, whose blessing 
we are to consider to-day. His father's words 
were, " Gad, a troop shall overcome him — 
but he shall overcome at the last." 

This tribe of Gad was situated on the other 
side of the river Jordan, and was what was 
called one of the " trans-Jordanic tribes." 

The tribes of Dan — Manasseh — Keuben, 
and Gad were the tribes which were situated 
on the eastern side of the River Jordan. 
Somehow or other the other tribes looked 



The Persevering Son. 103 

down on them, because they were situated 
on the other side of the river — -just as in Lon- 
don people think to-day that the Surrey side 
of the river Thames is not as respectable as 
the other side. Somehow or other, these 
' ' trans- Jordanic tribes ' ? were looked down 
upon by the other tribes as if they were not 
as respectable as those who lived on the west- 
ern side of the river. Well I This tribe of 
Gad was the easternmost of all the tribes. In 
its territory were found Ramoth Gilead, Jabesh 
Gilead, the brook Jabbok where Jacob cross- 
ed to meet his brother Esau — and that his- 
toric place called Peniel, where he wrestled 
with the angel until the break of day. To 
the east of this tribe of Gad were the wild 
aborigines of the country, called the Zuzims 
and Zam-zummims. 

These wild Tartar-like tribes were continu- 
ally making attacks upon the newly settled 
tribes of Israel. 

The tribe of Gad fared badly in all their 
border warfare. It became like that part of 
Scotland over which the Highlanders and the 



104 A Father's Blessing. 

Lowlanders were continually fighting. It 
was like Belgium, the battle field of Europe, 
in the days of the Emperor Charles the Fifth 
and of the first Napoleon. 

These Zuzims, or Zam-zummims would 
come down in a troop upon them and drive 
them across the river Jordan. But the people 
of this tribe of Gad were very persevering in 
character. They would never give up the 
fight, and though at the first they were driv- 
en off, at the last they prevailed and drove 
the intruders out of their territory. And in 
this way it happened that the far-off prophe- 
cy of old Jacob was fulfilled. "Gad, a troop 
shall overcome him: but he shall overcome 
at the last." 

We are to consider to-day the blessing 
which comes upon the persevering son. And 
by the persevering son we mean that son who 
knows how to work his way through a crowd 
to the front; the son who is not overcome by 
a multitude, but who, though a troop may 
overcome him, overcomes all at last. 

It is very surprising to see what persever- 



The Persevering Son. 105 

ance will do in conquering one's own faint- 
heartedness and in overcoming a troop of 
difficulties at the last. 

I was reading the other day one of Percy's 
stories about the perseverance of a Saracen 
princess, and how she was rewarded at the 
last. 

The story was as follows: Gilbert Becket, 
who was afterwards a flourishing citizen, 
was in his youth a soldier in the crusades, 
and being taken prisoner became a slave to 
a Saracen prince. He obtained the confi- 
dence of his master, and was loved by the 
prince's daughter. 

After some time he effected his escape; 
but the lady with her loving heart followed 
him. She knew but two words of the English 
language, " London" and " Gilbert," and by 
repeating the first she obtained a passage on 
a vessel, arrived in England, and found her 
way to the metropolis. She then took to the 
other word, and went from street to street 
pronouncing the word, "Gilbert," Gilbert," 
wherever she went. A crowd collected about 



106 A Father's Blessing. 

her asking a thousand questions, and to all 
she had but one answer, " Gilbert," " Gilbert ! " 
At last her determination to go through every 
street brought her to that one in which he 
who had won her heart in slavery was living 
in a prosperous condition. The crowd at- 
tracted the family to the window ; his ser- 
vant recognized her, and Gilbert Becket at 
last wedded his far come princess, with her 
solitary fond word. 

" Gad, a troop shall overcome him : but he 
shall overcome at the last." 

What do we learn from the blessing on 
the persevering son ? 

I. 

First of all we learn that perseverance 
is developed by the exercise of a strong 
will. 

There is a process at the photographer's 
office which is called developing the nega- 
tive. The plate, or negative as it is called, 
when the picture is taken, is brought out into 
the open sunlight under a glass, and in this 



The Persevering Son. 107 

way the power of the sun's rays brings out, 
or develops, the details of the picture. 

And, my dear children, perseverance is 
like a photographer's negative. It does not 
come to a picture at once ; it has to be de- 
veloped and brought out by the power of 
one's own will. A strong will develops the 
power of perseverance as the sunlight devel- 
ops the photograph. The most of us are not 
persevering by nature ; if we have persever- 
ance at all, it generally comes as it came to 
Gad, by experience. "A troop shall over- 
come him: but he shall overcome at the 
last." 

When Doctor Carey, the celebrated mis- 
sionary, was a boy, he tried one day to climb 
a tree ; but his foot slipped and he fell to the 
ground, breaking his leg by the fall This 
accident confined him to his bed many 
weeks, and caused him much suffering. But 
when his broken limb was healed, the first 
thing he did was to go and climb that same 
tree again, until he got to the top. 

Perseverance always wins in the race of 



108 A Father's Blessing. 

life. Not to give up easily : not to grow dis- 
couraged and abandon one's work: not to 
turn aside from a central purpose in life, for 
the sake of some passing whim, will surely 
give us the victory. 

Among the different games and races at 
Athens, there was one in which every con- 
testant carried a burning torch in his hand. 
The runner who arrived at the end without 
having his torch extinguished obtained the 
prize. 

If we light the torch of perseverance and 
keep it at the head of the race of life, we 
shall be pretty sure to win. 

"Hard pounding! Hard pounding, gen- 
tlemen," said the Duke of Wellington, at the 
battle of Waterloo, "but we will see who 
can pound the longest." 

And the side which pounded the longest 
was the side which won. 

As I write this sermon, I look up from 
my desk at a picture of the last charge of 
Napoleon's Guard at Waterloo, which hangs 
before me. They did their best, and tried 



The Persevering Son. 109 

their hardest to win the day, but the hard 
pounding of the other side was too much for 
the broken French Guard. The battle of 
Waterloo was won to the English not by 
brilliant generalship, but simply by long and 
persevering pounding. 

II. 

Secondly, — Perseverance is the sign of a re- 
serve of nature. 

A reserve of any kind is a great thing to 
have. A reserve in bank is a great thing 
to fall back upon. A reserve stock of 
strength in life, a reserve supply in an army, 
are all very serviceable in the matter of help- 
ing us to win the victory. 

I remember a young minister who, when 
he left the Divinity School, and was ordain- 
ed, wrote a wonderful sermon filled with 
power and wisdom. But when he came to 
write his second sermon he found that he 
had said all he had to say in his first ser- 
mon. He could think of nothing more to 
say. He walked up and down his room, 



110 A Father's Blessing. 

troubled with the alternative of saying noth- 
ing that was true, or saying nothing that 
was new. He had either to write poor stuff, 
or repeat what he had already said. At 
last he went to see his old minister and 
preceptor, to talk this matter out with him. 

" 1 can't tell what's the matter," said the 
young minister. " Both John, my compan- 
ion, and I can't write a second sermon with- 
out saying over again what we have already 
said in our first sermon. What is the mat- 
ter with us ? " 

" Matter with you ? " replied the old min- 
ister. " Matter with you — why there's only 
one thing the matter with you. You and 
John are both bright boys, but the trouble 
is you have both got all your goods in your 
shop ivindoiv." 

What this old minister meant was that 
there was no reserve of strength to these 
young men. All their capital was in their 
first sermon. A store, you know, which has 
all its goods in a show-case or in a show- 
window, and has empty shelves inside, has 



The Persevering Son. Ill 

not got much, capital with which to carry on 
the business. 

But perseverance in fitting up the unseen 
shelves inside with goods, will give a store- 
keeper great strength when his shop window 
is exhausted. 

A good reserve on hand will help a bank 
to fight its way through a business panic. 
And a good reserve of strength of character 
will help us in the day of trial and tempta- 
tion, and nothing shows that we have a re- 
serve of nature so surely as this Gad- like 
quality of hanging on through thick and 
thin, and never giving up at all ; this all- 
conquering faculty of perseverance. 

When the late Lord Beaconsfield first 
entered the English House of Commons, he 
was such a fantastically dressed looking fop, 
and was beside this the son of a Jew, that 
the entire house laughed at him when he 
sat down, after making his opening speech. 

As he took his seat amidst the jeers and 
derision of the house, he rose again upon 
his feet and exclaimed, as he lifted up his 



112 A Father's Blessing. 

right hand to the roof, " You laugh at me 
now, I know, but the time will come when 
you will be glad to hear me." 

When he was a boy, he said, when asked 
what he meant to be in life, " I want to be 
the prime minister of England, and the prime 
minister I shall become." 

" Gad, a troop shall overcome him : but he 
shall overcome at the last." 

III. 

Thirdly, Perseverance is the sign of concen- 
trativeness of purpose. 

Concentrativeness is a big word of five syl- 
lables, but it is an easy word to spell, and all 
words which are easy to spell are easy to 
understand. To concentrate, is to bring 
many opposite things together, so as to give 
force to the whole. Concentrativeness is the 
act of bringing many things together, so as 
to get a strong result from their combined 
action. 

Here is a story which explains what I 
mean by concentrativeness: 



The Persevering Son. 113 

A little boy was once watching a large 
building, as the workmen from day to day 
carried up bricks and mortar. 

"My son," said his father, "you seem very 
much interested in the bricklayers. Do you 
think of learning the trade ? " 

"No," he replied. " I was thinking what 
a little thing a brick is, and what great 
houses are built by laying one brick on 
another." 

"Well, my boy," answered his father, "so 
it is in all the great works of life. The bricks 
which make up a great building like this are 
not dumped on by cart-loads. They are 
placed on very carefully, brick by brick. 
And the duties and habits which go to make 
up a successful life are laid one by one upon 
a human character." 

Now, perseverance is the sign that we are 
concentrating our powers upon a definite 
piece of work before us, so as to succeed in 
that which we have undertaken. 

You all know what a great and good man 
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was. 



114 A Father's Blessing. 

One day John Wesley's father said to his 
wife, while patiently teaching her boy one 
of his school lessons, " Why do you take so 
much time with that stupid boy ? " 

" Because," replied the mother, " nineteen 
times won't do. If I tell him but nineteen 
times, all my labor is lost ; but the twentieth 
time secures the object." 

It was the power of that mother in concen- 
trating her energies upon John Wesley 
which made him the man he afterwards be- 
came. 

John Wesley's mother centered all her 
powers upon her boy to make a man of him, 
and the result of all her energies was " John 
Wesley." 

Now, my dear children, remember these 
three lessons about Gad, the son who knew 
how to push his way to the front; the son 
who knew how to drive back his enemies, 
even though at the first he himself had been 
driven back. 

I. Perseverance is developed by the exer- 
cise of a strong will. 



The Persevering Son. 115 

II. Perseverance is the sign of a reserve 
of nature. 

III. Perseverance is the sign of concen- 
trativeness of purpose. 

At a certain battle, an officer who had been 
doing good service came up to General Sir 
Charles Napier, and said, "Sir Charles, we 
have taken a standard." The general looked 
at him, but made no reply, and turning 
round, began to speak to some one else, upon 
which the officer repeated, " Sir Charles, we 
have taken a standard." The general turned 
sharp round upon him and said, " Then take 
another." 

So I say to you to-day, if you have gained 
one victory by perseverance, then go and 
gain another, and in saying this end my ser- 
mon about 

" Gad, the Persevering Son." 



viil 

THE SLESSING OF ASHER, or 

THE "SELF-INDULGENT SON." 

"Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall 
yield royal dainties."— Genesis xlix. 20. 

CfjVEAR old St. Paul's church on Third 
&/&' Street in Philadelphia, there used to be 
a restaurant, in front of which fat green 
turtles were deposited upon their backs. 

I can remember as a little boy, when going 
to Sunday-school, how we used to stop and 
look at those green turtles squirming their 
feet, and rolling their heads, and trying in 
every way to get on their feet again. 

But as the superintendent of the school 
was strict, and as the boys who were late had 
to go up and turn over a big card with the 
words on it, "I am late," — we never used 
to get a long enough look at those green 

(117) 



118 A Father's Blessing. 

turtles — predestined to be made into turtle 
soup. 

There were good, bad and indifferent boys 
who used to go to that old Sunday-school. 
Bishop Odenheimer and Edwin Forest, Hen- 
ry George, the political economist, and Owen 
Faucett, the actor, George C. Thomas, and 
many others used to attend that famous 
school, and stand up before the superinten- 
dent and recite texts and verses, and sing with 
Mr. Farr who used to play on the melodeon. 

But about these turtles, as I was saying, 
there they used to lie on the flat of their backs, 
the very picture of fat, easy-going, luxurious 
creatures. There was a shoe store, and a 
gun store, and a cake store, where they had 
cinnamon buns for a cent a piece, and there 
was this green turtle place, all on Third Street. 
Well! 1 have never thought of those fat, 
unctuous looking turtles from that day to 
this, but, somehow, when I came to write this 
sermon about Asher, the luxurious self-in- 
dulgent son, in some strange way, my mind 
went back again over all those years to the 



The Self-indulgent Son. 119 

green turtles which used to tempt us to wait 
at the corner of Third and Walnut Streets. 
The words, " Out of Asher his bread shall be 
fat, and he shall yield royal dainties," have a 
very luxurious sound. They seem to tell us 
of what is called good living, of state dinners, 
and of delights of the table. 

I confess it sounds to me as if it had to do 
in some way with the sin of gluttony; and 
one of the first things I ever remember in 
my life connected with the thought of self- 
indulgence and gluttony was the sight of 
those green turtles on their backs, at Third 
and Walnut Streets, when I was a little boy, 
hurrying along so that I might not have to 
turn over that dreadful card, 

"lam late," 

in the presence of the superintendent at old 
St. Paul's Sunday-school. 

Now self-indulgence, luxury, gluttony; and 
caring only for what are called the good 
things of life, are habits which will surely 
coil the devil's chain about us, and make us 



120 A Father's Blessing. 

his captives. And I suppose in this way 
these green turtles came to my mind to stand 
for the sin of gluttony. There is nothing 
wrong or sinful in green turtles themselves 
or about having them for turtle-soup. 

It is only when we make eating and drink- 
ing the chief end of life, and spend all our 
time in thinking about the delights and 
pleasures of good living and eating, that 
green turtles come to be associated with the 
thought of gluttons and the sins of gluttony. 

Some years ago when I was in Paris I went 
to see a set of pictures called the Seven Cas- 
tles of the Devil. They represented what 
are called the seven deadly sins. The seven 
deadly sins are: 



I. 


Pride. 


II. 


Covetousness. 


III. 


Lust. 


IV. 


Anger. 


V. 


Gluttony. 


VI. 


Envy. 


VII. 


Sloth. 



I shall never forget the picture of gluttony. 



The Self-indulgent Son. 121 

Bottles of wine, cakes, pies, glaces, jellies, 
meats, fruit, vegetables, birds, fish, and all 
sorts of things to be eaten were all crowd- 
ing their way around the castle where the 
glutton was imprisoned, and were determined 
to conquer the castle and kill the glutton 
within, by making him eat too much. 

Now to be a glutton is nothing less than to 
be a human pig. The one end and aim of a pig 
is to eat and fill himself with food and then go 
and lie down and sleep it off. A pig doesn't 
care for anything but the swill trough and 
the mud. A pig never thinks about the blue 
sky or the green grass or any of the beauties 
of nature. All a pig ever thinks of is to get 
back to his swill-trough once more. 

And there are a great many people in the 
world, my dear children, who act as if they 
did not care for very much more besides the 
delights of the dinner-table. When we see 
children at parties stuffing themselves at the 
table, and then hiding away nuts and cakes 
and sugar-plums in their pockets, and when 
we see grown up people, who ought to set 



122 A Father's Blessing. 

children a better example, doing the same 
thing around a party table, it makes us feel 
that the sin of gluttony or self-indulgence is 
a sin which links those who indulge in it to 
those uninteresting animals who grunt, and 
live in what is called a sty. 

I want to-day, my dear children, to warn 
you against the evil habit of self-indulgence. 
If we get into the way of always looking out 
for "royal dainties," and for "fat" places, 
like this luxurious son Asher, we will become 
spoiled and selfish and pampered, and way- 
ward men and women. Spoiled children are 
dreadful to have about the house; and self- 
indulgent Asher-like children, who are al- 
ways on the look-out for having the best of 
everything and taking care of No. 1 at all 
times and in all places, are a nuisance. 

So then, let us come back to Asher, the 
self-indulgent and luxurious son, and let us 
find out what lessons we can learn from him. 

If we would avoid the evil habit of self-in- 
dulgence we must remember these three 
things : 



The Self-indulgent Son. 123 

I. 

First, we must try to put something into 
life, and not merely try to get something out 
of life. This tribe of Asher was situated near 
the Mediterranean Sea, afar up to the North. 
Mt. Lebanon and Mt. Hermon stood guard 
at the North, and Mt. Car m el was at the South, 
looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It 
was all right in these people of the tribe of 
Asher to raise fat crops and luxurious vines. 
All these things are well enough in their 
place. It is only when we make them the 
chief end and aim of life, and live entirely 
for them, that we run the risk of develop- 
ing within us the evil habit of self-indul- 
gence. 

David Garrick, the celebrated actor, once 
showed his friend, Dr. Johnson, his fine house, 
gardens, statues, and pictures at Hampton 
Court. 

As the Doctor was about to leave, he shook 
his friend's hand, and said, " Ah ! David, Da- 
vid, these are the things which make a death- 
bed terrible." 



124 A Father's Blessing. 

My dear children, we cannot get out of life 
the happiness we want unless first of all we 
put some happiness into the life of others. If 
we go about continually thinking how we can 
make our friends and our position and our 
duties in life serve us and yield us " royal dain- 
ties," we will lay up for ourselves a miserable 
old age in the midst of our luxurious self-in- 
dulgence. 

Depend upon it, my dear children, we will 
get out of life the full crop of that which we 
put into life. That which we sow we shall 
surely reap. If you have a garden and sow 
flower seeds, and corn and vegetables and 
potatoes, you will reap the fruit of these 
in the Fall time. But if you plant flat-irons 
or iron nails, nothing will ever come up out 
of them, simply because there is nothing to 
come; they have got no hidden life in them. 

And in the same way, my dear children, if we 
put good seed into life, if we plant good hab- 
its and sound principles in our nature, we will 
reap a rich harvest in the growth of our 
character in after days. But if we are only 



The Self-indulgent Son. 125 

like Asher, continually on the look-out for fat 
things and royal dainties, and make the idea 
of the green turtles, the ruling idea of our 
life, we will be forever caught in the chain of 
luxury and self-indulgence. 

If we would avoid the habit of self-indul- 
gence, we must remember 

II. 

Secondly. — That we must keep our bodies 
under, so as not to become the slaves of 
greed. 

A curb-bit is a great thing to have upon a 
restive, ungovernable horse. It holds him 
down and stops his waywardness as nothing 
else can do. And a curb-bit on our passions 
and evil habits is a great help to us in the 
way of teaching us how to submit to the will 
of our better nature. 

St. Paul says in one place, "Walk in the 
Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the 
flesh." He means by this, that if we do not 
walk in the way of temptation we shall not 
feel the power of temptation. If we keep un- 



126 A Father's Blessing. 

der our feet the thoughts and appearances of 
evil, we will not be subject to their power. 
And in another place he says, "J keep under 
my body, and bring it into subjection, lest 
that by any means when I had preached to 
others 1 myself should be a castaway." 

This is a great principle for us all in life to 
learn. It means that St. Paul had learned 
how to use the curb-bit on his passions, and 
so he rode his own horse, instead of having 
his horse run away with him. 

As I sit at my desk, up here among the 
Berkshire Hills, I often look out on the road 
to Daiton, with the blue hills covered with 
snow around it. Along this road go droves 
of cattle, sheep and pigs to be killed. 

The poor things mostly go along the road 
in droves very quietly. But every now and 
then a cross bull appears who is led by a rope 
which is tied to a brass ring in his nose, or a 
fierce pig, who looks ugly and keeps his ears 
up, is led by a rope around his hind leg. 
Sometimes these animals perform a dance in 
the road, and go round and round the man 



The Self-indulgent Son. 127 

in the centre, like the spokes of a wheel around 
the hub. But the man with the cord tied to 
the bull's nose and the pig's hind leg gener- 
ally gets the better of the animals, and after 
a little while they go on again, very quietly. 

And I have often thought, my dear children, 
how like this man with the rope, we have to 
tie up in this same way certain fierce passions 
and habits within us. If we can get the ring 
through the nose of anger, or can get a rope 
around the leg of our self-indulgence, and 
can give these bad habits a pull when they 
begin to carry on and give us trouble, what 
a great thing it is for our soul's growth. 

If our bad habits get the upper hand and 
run away with us, we fall : but if we can keep 
them under, then we shall be able to win in 
the great fight of life, and we shall be made 
conquerors by the grace which God has given 
us, whereby to resist temptation. 

III. 

Thirdly. — We must remember that self-in- 
dulgence creeps upon us unconsciously, and 



128 A Father's Blessing. 

must be fought to the bitter end. When we 
come to think about it we shall find that all 
the seven deadly sins are contained within 
this sin of self-indulgence. All the seven 
castles of the devil are after all enclosed 
within this one. 

Self-indulgence makes us 

1st. Proud. 2d. Covetous. 

3d. Lustful. 4th. Angry. 

5th. Envious. 6th. Slothful. 
Indeed it seems as if this Asher-like de- 
sire for bread that "shall be fat," and for 
" royal dainties," this determination always 
to be on the lookout for one's own little pet 
self, were the mother of all the remaining 
bad habits within us. We are selfish, very 
often, before we know it. It is natural for 
us to want to be self-indulgent, but if we 
do not fight against this evil habit it will 
ruin oar nature and make us to be despised 
of our fellow-men. I have sometimes watch- 
ed the lobsters on the rocks at the seashore, 
and they have taught me a lesson. When 
they have been left high and dry among the 



The Self-indulgent Son. 129 

rocks they have not sense and energy enough 
to work their way back to the sea, but wait 
on the rocks for the sea to come to them. If 
the sea does not come, they remain on the 
rocks and are caught, or die where they are, 
while all the time only the slightest exertion 
on their part would enable them to reach the 
tumbling waves below. And unless we 
arouse ourselves and fight to the bitter end 
this lazy self-indulgence which comes creep- 
ing over us, we will be made captive by those 
fat things and royal dainties which captured 
the glutton in the castle of self-indulgence 
in the painting I spoke about, in the series 
of pictures of the Seven Castles of the 
Devil. 

These are the three lessons then which we 
learn from Asher, the self-indulgent son. 

1. We must try to put something into life, 
and not merely try to get something out of 
life. 

2. We must keep our bodies under, so as 
not to become the slaves of greed. 

3. Self-indulgence creeps upon us uncon- 



130 A Father's Blessing. 

sciously, and must be fought to the bitter 
end. 

A minister once received in his pulpit the 
following request for prayer: 

"The prayers of this congregation are 
earnestly requested for a man who is pros- 
pering in his worldly concerns." 

Keep an eye on yourselves, dear children, 
when you find yourselves looking out for 
places where your " bread shall be fat," 
places which, like this land of Asher, will 
yield you " royal dainties." 



IX. 

THE BLESSING ON NAPH- 
TALI;or, "THE LIGHT-MIND- 
ED SON." 

"Naphtali is a Mnd let loose; lie giveth. goodly- 
words." — Genesis xlix. 21. 

^f|F you have ever seen a heifer in a 
>sjj pasture, or a lot of young lambs gambol- 
ing about in a meadow, you will know what 
is meant by a "hind let loose." These 
young creatures seem to have no law or 
motive or principle about living. They will 
crop a little clover, twist their tails, jump 
and prance around their sedate old parents, 
and then go through the same pranks again. 
Indeed, these young creatures behave as if 
they had the St. Vitus' dance, and could 
never keep quiet. 

"When we say of them that they are like 
(131) 



132 A Father's Blessing. 

" hinds let loose," we describe them exactly. 
A hind let loose is the very embodiment of 
all that is light and foolish and without sense 
or reason. 

Heifers and lambs, kids and colts, calves 
and kittens, are all undeveloped animals. 
They are young, and foolish, and immature. 
They do not know what life is. They think 
that they are forever to stay in the beauti- 
ful green meadows, where there is nothing 
but clover and mint and running brooks. 

Ah ! little do they know of the terrible 
union of mint with spring lamb — or that the 
clover field is to fit them for the butcher's 
stall or the hard yoke of service. 

What life really is to them they will learn 
by-and-by, but at present they do not know 
anything about it ; how can they ? They are 
only " hinds let loose " in the pasture field. 
Jacob said of this son Naphtali that he " was 
a hind let loose," and then he added, " he 
giveth goodly words." It is hard to know 
just what he meant by this. The tribe of 
Naphtali was situated to the north of Pales- 



The Light-minded Son. 133 

tine, and its borders were on the waters of 
the Lake of Gennesareth. The river Jordan 
flowed by its eastern boundary, and it was a 
fruitful and populous country. But the tribe . 
of Naphtali was never distinguished for any- 
thing in particular. It never seemed to 
grow into greatness or to develop into any 
kind of strength. 

Perhaps this was because the children of 
Naphtali — like their father, the head of the 
tribe — never got beyond the period of the 
hind in the pasture field. 

Some people have the power of growing ; 
some people have the capacity of develop- 
ment in their make-up. Other people stay 
where they happen to be and never grow at 
all. They are like calves and lambs and 
colts which never grow into oxen or sheep 
or horses. 

Our subject to-day is, " Naphtali, the un- 
developed or light-minded son." 

"VVe learn three lessons from the blessing 
on " Naphtali. " 



134 A Father's Blessing. 

I. 

First. Light-minded persons are very 
fond of words. 

Words are very much like the spring blos- 
soms. They stand for something which is 
to come after them, and if the fruit never 
appears the blossoms are of very little 
worth. 

Words are only blossoms. They are the 
promise of fruit which is to come afterwards, 
but if the deeds never appear after our words 
have been uttered, our lives are like the 
apple-tree which has beautiful blossoms in 
spring but never has any fruit in October. 
Now words are very nice things in them- 
selves. "Kind words can never die," the 
little song says, yet words without thought 
or action are vain. Jesus Christ our Master 
did not save the world by the beautiful words 
which he uttered, but by the deeds which he 
accomplished. He uttered beautiful words 
in the Sermon on the Mount, but it was 
what he did for the world upon Mount Cal- 
vary which saved the world. 



The Light-minded Son. 135 

Look at Job's friends, and at the little they 
did for him in his hour of trouble. They 
came and sat down by his side and began to 
talk to him. Words, words, words, were all 
that Zophar the Naamathite, and Eliphaz 
the Temanite,. and Bildad the Shuhite of- 
fered to poor Job in his troubles. At last 
he got angry with them for giving him only 
goodly words in his hour of trouble, and he 
lifted up his voice and said, " Miserable com- 
forters are ye all." Light-minded, talkative 
people, who have plenty of words and noth- 
ing else, are pretty poor company after all, 
for we soon grow tired of their endless talk. 

Eem ember this, my dear children, words 
are only blossoms, and blossoms are only the 
promise of fruit, — they are not the fruit itself. 

II. 

Secondly. Light-minded persons do not 
stand the test of time. 

It is a great thing in life to learn how to 
wear well. Some clothes wear well; other 
articles of clothing wear out easily. Some 



136 A Father's Blessing. 

people and some friendships wear well; 
other people and other friendships soon wear 
out. Some friendships need to be kept in 
perpetual repair. They are all the time 
going wrong or are getting out of repair, 
like a cheap three-dollar Waterbury Watch. 
I knew a very bright young artist, once, 
whose pictures were refused at the public ex- 
hibition. He was very much surprised. He 
was dumbfounded, and could not take it in. 
He had always painted well, from the time 
when he was a very little boy. His whole 
life as a boy had been full of promise. He 
had painted well and painted easily. He had 
had a boyhood filled with blossoms, and now 
at the last he had been disappointed. But 
the trouble was, he had not been wearing 
well. He had been presuming on his early 
powers, and had not been careful enough to 
study up the details of his art. And then he 
said to his friend: " Now, I'm going to begin 
to work just as if I had never done anything 
at all before. I am going to get down to the 
bottom of things, and start all over again." 



The Light-minded Son. 137 

That boy was avoiding the mistake of 
Naphtali, — and will no doubt make a success 
of his art and become a great painter, simply 
because he was not content with "blossoms" 
in the place of fruit ; he was not satisfied with 
mere " goodly words." 

There is one character in Pilgrim's Progress 
who always makes me think of this easy- 
going Naphtali. 

It is the character of Talkative ! He was 
a man who could talk about religion, — and 
deal out the goodly words of piety ! 

Hopeful thought there never was such a 
pilgrim going to the Celestial City as this 
Talkative, but Christian soon showed his 
companion that Talkative was a mere Naph- 
tali, only a hind let loose on the journey, 
whose whole stock in trade of religion con- 
sisted in giving forth a set of goodly words. 

III. 

Thirdly. Light-minded persons should 
seek for reserve strength. 

1 have often watched the carpenters and 



138 A Father's Blessing. 

ship-builders at work in a ship-yard. They 
have all sorts of material by their side. Some 
planks are cut out of the heaviest kind of 
lumber; other planks are made out of the 
lightest kind of timber. The heavy logs 
with their great thick-ribbed sides are hewn 
and cut and fitted into the ship's ribs. 
These logs are to stand the great storms 
of the ocean, the ice, the waves, and the 
rough knocks of the outside world. The 
light, thin planks, on the other hand, are 
made into the doors and shutters and wood- 
work of the cabin. The heavy lumber is not 
wanted on deck, and the light timber is not 
wanted on the ship's outside. There is no 
reserve strength in the timber. When it 
breaks, it snaps and goes to pieces. But 
there is a reserve power about the lumber. 
When it gets a blow from the waves or a 
knock from the ice, it resists it. It has a 
strength of its own which is not seen upon 
the surface. It has a hidden power of its 
own, and resistance lies dormant in that 
power. 



The Light-minded Son. 139 

And this which is true of the character of 
the wood is true of us. We may be timber 
or we may be lumber. We may be mere 
planks for the surface of life, or we may be 
logs for the realities of life. Light-minded, 
talkative persons of the Naphtali kind ought 
to remember that pretty words and phrases 
are mere blossoms. They are not fruit, and 
will never become fruit. Actions speak 
louder than words, or as the old proverb says, 
"Handsome is that handsome does." Dear 
children, do not think that you are necessarily 
good because you talk good or have " good 
words" about you all the time. Seek 
continually for "reserve strength," that 
strength which is the ship's heavy lumber, 
which will keep it still headed on in the 
day of stress and storm. Our Lord says 
to us, as He said to His n Apostle of old, 
" My strength is sufficient for thee." If we 
have this strength of God in our hearts, we 
3an never make shipwreck of ourselves and 
fail. 

Eem ember, then, these lessons which we 



140 A Father's Blessing. 

learn from the blessing upon Naphtali, the 
undeveloped or light-minded son. 

First. Light-minded persons are very fond 
of words. 

Secondly. Light-minded persons do not 
stand the test of time. 

Thirdly. Light-minded persons should 
seek for reserve strength. 

David says in one of his psalms, " I believe, 
therefore have I spoken." Let us learn not 
to speak until we believe something deeply 
and have got something definite to say. 

Let us beware ®f following this easy-go- 
lucky, hap-hazard, thoughtless kind of life, 
which we see this son of Jacob possessed. 

Let us each try for a better blessing than 
that which the old patriarch pronounced upon 
this talkative, easy-going, undeveloped, 

Naphtali, "The Light-minded Son." 



X. 



THE BLESSING OF JOSEPH ; or 
"THE FRUITFUL SON." 

" Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough 
by a well ; whose branches run over the wall." — Gen- 
esis xlix. 22. 

@jtl T is not hard to know a good coin from a 
^< bad one. The good coin always has a 
true ring to it. And a good character always 
has a true ring to it. A true, upright, hon- 
est soul can always be detected by the life 
which is revealed, and not only by the words 
which are spoken. 

There was a good deal of counterfeit coin 
among the sons of Jacob. These brethren 
of Joseph were a very poor set. For the most 
part it was an extremely difficult matter to 
find anything good in these boys to bless. 
Their dying father found it a hard matter to 
say anything very good about them. 

(141) 



142 A Father's Blessing. 

But when Jacob came to bless Joseph, the 
spirit of the old man revived, and he burst 
forth into a chorus of praise as he thought 
of all that had happened in the romantic life 
of his darling son. And so he uttered these 
words: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a 
fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run 
over the wall : the archers have sorely 
grieved him, and shot at him, and hated 
him : but his bow abode in strength, and the 
arms of his hands were made strong by the 
hands of the mighty God of Jacob: (from 
thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel). 
The blessings of thy father have prevailed 
above the blessings of my progenitors, unto 
the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; 
they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on 
the crown of the head of him that was sepa- 
rate from his brethren." There is no story 
in all the Bible that is so full of interest to 
us as the story of Joseph. His beautiful 
childhood, his cruel treatment by his broth- 
ers, his slavery in Egypt, his resistance to 
temptation, his rise and ascent to power 



The Fruitful Son. 143 

under Pharaoh, his generosity to his breth- 
ren, and his filial devotedness to his father 
and his family make his life and character 
famous in the annals of Bible-story. 

And yet there was no tribe of Joseph in the 
promised land, as there was no tribe of Levi. 
Levi the cruel son and Joseph the fruitful son 
each drop out of the land of promise. Nei- 
ther have any inheritance named after them. 
But then this is after all a greater honor 
to Joseph, because the two sons of Joseph, 
Ephraim and Manasseh, took the place of 
their father and their uncle Levi. The por- 
tion of Manasseh was on the eastern side of 
the river Jordan and the lake of Galilee, 

while the tribe of Ephraim was situated on 

the western side, and became one of the 

most powerful tribes in Israel. 

Ephraim became in time the capital of the 

ten tribes in the days of the great rebellion, 

and afterwards was known as the region of 

Samaria. 

I want to speak to you to-day about the 

blessing of Jacob upon 



144 A Father's Blessing. 

" THE FRUITFUL SON." 

We learn three lessons from this subject. 

I. 

First — A fruitful character is the highest 
kind of man. 

What we want in any life is, after all, 
what we want in a tree or plant. We do not 
want mere pretty blossoms in Spring: we 
want fruit in the Fall-time. Pretty words, 
pretty sayings, pretty manners are all very 
good in their way; but what God wants of 
us all, my dear children, and what the world 
wants of us, is that our lives should have 
fruit in them, not merely blossoms. 

"Joseph is a fruitful bough," said the old 
patriarch of his darling son. There was not 
much fruit found among the other children 
of the family. They seemed like scrubby 
apple trees at the end of the long row in the 
orchard. You know how sometimes there 
will be one or two fine rich trees in an or- 
chard, and then, how all the others will be 
poor, thin, weak, and scrawny trees, tapering 



The Fruitful Son. 145 

down to some poor little thin one. Well, in- 
this same way Joseph was the strong, rich, 
fruitful son; the others were, for the most 
part, the scrub trees of the family orchard. 

Now, my dear children, there is a great 
temptation to us all to-day — in the ease and 
luxury which is about us, to humor and pet 
ourselves, and not to make any very great 
exertion to bring forth fruit in our lives. 

If we are easy with ourselves, and do not 
learn to discipline ourselves, we will never 
have fruitful lives or become fruitful charac- 
ters. The gardeners cut and trim and prune 
the leaves and branches of their trees and 
vines on purpose to keep from being too lux- 
urious. A fruitful tree or a fruitful bush 
means one which has been disciplined and 
pruned, and has been trimmed of its super- 
fluous leaves and branches. And a fruitful 
life is one which has been treated in exactly 
the same way. 

Joseph had been tempted and tried, and 
had gone through very heavy sorrows. And 
the result of it all was that when he came 

10 



146 A Father's Blessing. 

to the throne of Pharaoh he was a rich, 
strong, noble character, and his life was a 
faithful one. But the other boys of Jacob 
— the brethren of Joseph — did not have their 
characters pruned and tried, and the result 
was that they were not faithful in their lives. 

No life, ray dear children, can be success- 
ful if there is no fruit about it. 

It is not the man who can talk well, or the 
man who can dress well, or the man who is 
rich, or learned, or powerful, who is the fruit- 
ful or successful man. It is the man whose 
life tells what he is, and who by his deeds 
fulfils our Lord's words when He said, 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." 

There was a wonderful picture in New York 
in the late Morgan collection, which has 
made a great effect by the power there is in 
it. It is called, " The Story of the Mission- 
ary." An old monk, with blows and bruises 
over his head and arms, is reciting the story 
of his adventures in the mission-field to a 
group of cardinals and church dignitaries in 
Rome. One is playing with a dog; another 



The Fruitful Son. 147 

is sipping his coffee ; a third is pouring out a 
glass of wine, and is laughing; a fourth is 
looking through his glasses at the mission- 
ary, as if he did not believe his story could 
be possible ; a fifth is listening to a funny 
story which a companion is whispering in 
his ear, and a sixth, with his hand upon his 
forehead, is drinking in the words of the en^ 
raptured monk, as with closed eyes he goes 
over the recital of his doings for the love of 
Jesus Christ. 

It is a wonderful picture. The whole 
meaning of life is there. It is not hard to 
tell which is the fruitful life. It is not the 
life which has power, or luxury, or the good 
things of this world about it. It is the life 
which is fruitful in results which is the true- 
ly successful life. 

II. 

Secondly. — A fruitful character always has 
some secret source of supply. 

" Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a bough 
by a well," A bough by a well is one which 



148 A Father's Blessing. 

draws tip its supplies by its roots from the 
water which is near it. Willow-trees in the 
first touch of Spring-time, seem to be greener 
than any of the other trees about them. The 
pussy willows seem to be the first of all the 
green things which open at the touch of 
Spring. But the real reason why they bloom 
before the other trees is that they grow near 
the running brooks, so that their roots run 
deep down and suck in their full supply of 
water. 

Or perhaps you may sometime have watchr 
ed how the hyacinth bulbs in glass jars 
have sent down their long white roots intc 
the water, and have taken all their growth 
and sustenance from it. They are beautiful 
and fruitful plants, because their roots go 
down into the water and get their strength 
from it. 

And Jacob said of his darling son Joseph 
that he was a fruitful bough — "even a bough 
by a well." In other words, he had some se- 
cret source of supply from which he drew his 
strength. 



The Fruitful Son. 149 

Joseph's well, or the source of his supply 
and strength of character, was his faith in 
God. He knew that God would not desert 
him. He knew that however dark his life 
might look there was a divine eve watching 
over him, and a divine hand leading him. 
This faith in God kept him firm in the hour 
of temptation, patient in the hour of suffer- 
ing, and calm and undisturbed in the hour of 
success and triumph. 

We all have our " wells " in life from which 
we draw our supply of strength. Perhaps 
it may be our mother, or some Sunday- 
school teacher or friend, or some church or 
good book, or some minister who always 
helps us to be brave and true and good. 
Perhaps if we try we can be "wells" to 
one another, and can help instead of hinder- 
ing one another on the journey of life. 
Some people discourage and hinder us ; other 
people help us and cheer us by their kind- 
ness and their courage. Some friendships 
are discouraging; other friendships are 
full of help and assistance. Many a man 



150 A Father's Blessing. 

draws his supply of strength in life from 
some brave, true wife. Many a man's well 
of strength to which his roots go down for 
nourishment is his faith in God, which per- 
haps has been taught him by his mother. 

God said to Abraham on one occasion, 
** Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and 
thy exceeding great reward." 

It is a great thing to get behind the fact 
of God as our helper and defender. 

This was what made Luther and Washing- 
ton and Lincoln so strong. They were 
" boughs by a well." The roots of their 
nature went down into the deep ground 
where the springs are. And they were 
strong because their sources of supply were 
strong. 

Kemember this lesson of our subject, my 
dear children: a fruitful character always 
has some secret source of supply. 

III. 

Thirdly. — A fruitful character always out- 
grows its boundaries. 



The Fruitful Son. 151 

" Whose branches run over a wall." 

I have seen tomato plants and " dusty 
miller " and " morning glories " spread all 
over their own separate little patch in the 
garden, and throw themselves wherever they 
could find an inch of earth to grow in. 

There is no such thing as keeping some 
kind of plants in their narrow little garden 
beds. If they are to grow at all they must 
grow u over the wall." 

And there is no such thing as keeping 
certain people within narrow bounds. If 
a man is not too large for his place he is 
generally too small for it. Joseph was one 
of those persons who always grow over the 
wall of their surroundings. When he was 
a boy in Goshen he grew over into his 
father's life and cared for him. W 7 hen he 
was a prisoner in Egypt, he grew over the 
wail which separated him from his com- 
panions in prison and cared for the butler 
and the baker. When he was a prince 
upon the throne he grew over the wall and 
cared for all the people of Egypt, and for 



152 A Father's Blessing. 

his own family who were starving in Ca- 
naan. All through his eventful life Jacob's 
description of Joseph was true: "Joseph is 
a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by 
a well ; whose branches grow over the wall." 

We can all remember in the country 
how some generous-minded apple tree or 
some kind-hearted cherry tree let their 
richly freighted branches grow over the 
wall for the passers-by to gather their fruit. 
They do not seem to be willing to keep all 
their fruit for themselves. They let their 
branches bend over the wall for others. 

And so it is of us. If we have fruit in 
our lives we must be willing to let it run 
over the wall of our boundaries for the 
sake of others. 

Now, my dear children, we must not keep 
our lives fenced in to our own little enclosure, 
like some thin little sapling shut in by its own 
tree-box. We must grow out of our own 
home-life, and our set of friends, and our 
own way of looking at things. For the trees 
which do not grow over the wall are most 



The Fruitful Son. 153 

generally the trees which have very little 
fruit upon them. 

These then are the lessons which we 
learn from the blessing of Jacob upon his 
son Joseph. 

1st. A fruitful character is the highest 
kind of man. *■ 

2d. A fruitful character always has some 
secret source of supply. 

3d. A fruitful character always outgrows 
its surroundings. 

There is one thing very singular about 
this blessing upon Joseph. We do not 
know when or where the other sons of 
Jacob died or what became of their bones. 

But the bones of Joseph were carried up 
with the children of Israel when they went 
up out of Egypt into Canaan. We are 
told they embalmed Joseph in Egypt. 

Here is the closing thought for us. If 
we are fruitful in our lives we shall be 
embalmed in the memory of our friends, 
and they will always carry with them the 
remains of our fruitful lives. 



XI. 

THE BLESSING ON BENJA- 
MIN; or, "THE SON OF THE 
RIGHT HAND." 

" Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning h© 
shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the 
spoil." — Genesis xlix. 27. 

jTjMHERE is a period in almost everybody's 
^^ life, when he feels that he must go to 
sea. Most bad boys, and some good ones 
have gone to sea, or have been stowaways 
on some ship or emigrant train. 

It is a part of our nature, when we are 
young, to want to roam. We want to travel 
and wander away out of sight and sound 
of our home duties and home companions. 
Those words of our text to-day sound just like 
the wild pirate we have often wished we 
could become when we were boys at school. 
11 Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morn. 

(155) 



156 A Father's Blessing. 

ing he shall devour the prey, and at night he 
shall divide the spoil." 

The tribe of Benjamin was one of the most 
interesting and powerful of all the tribes in 
the Holy Land. "There is little Benjamin, 
their ruler," this is the way in which this 
tribe is spoken of in one of the psalms. The 
great capital of all the tribes, Jerusalem, was 
in its borders. The boundary between Judah 
and Benjamin ran at the foot of the hill on 
which the city stands, so that the city of 
Jerusalem itself was actually in Benjamin, 
while by crossing the narrow ravine of Hin- 
nom, one could set foot on the territory of 
Judah. The River Jordan ran by the side 
of the territory of Benjamin, and the Dead 
Sea was below it. 

All the modern Jews have come from the 
two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. These 
two tribes formed the kingdom of Judah. 
The other ten tribes formed the kingdom of 
Israel. The ten tribes were carried away 
captive into Syria, and we do not know 
what became of them or their descendants. 



The Son of the Right Hand. 157 

All the Jews who are in Europe and Amer- 
ica have descended from the two tribes of 
Judah and Benjamin. 

But to come back again to the blessing of 
Jacob upon Benjamin. We shall find that 
this Benjamin was a very different character 
in after life, from that which he was in his 
younger days. In the morning of his days, 
he wanted to devour the prey: at night he 
wanted to divide the spoil. 

That is, in his early days he wanted every- 
thing that he could lay his hands on for him- 
self: in after life he was ready and willing to 
divide what he had with others. This is what 
is meant by d^ouring the prey, and then di- 
viding the spoil. 

In other words, Benjamin was a changed 
or converted character in his manhood, from 
that which he was in his boyhood. He made 
a change of base in his life — from looking out 
always for No. 1, to looking out for others. 
Instead of devouring everything himself, he 
learned how to divide his good things with 
others. 



158 A Father's Blessing. 

We read in the Bible that when Rachel, 
his mother, lay dying, after the birth of Ben- 
jamin, that she called his name Benoni, but 
that his father called him Benjamin. Benoni 
means son of sorrow — a son of the left hand ; 
while the word Benjamin means a son of 
comfort — a son of the right hand. 

One of the most interesting and instructive 
sermons I ever remember as a boy, was a ser- 
mon by my father, at old St. Paul's Church, 
in Philadelphia, at the Children's Church Ser- 
vice there, on the subject of "The Marks of 
a Benoni." You will find it in the "Rills 
from the Fountain of Life," and I advise you 
to get it and read it for yourselves. 

Benjamin then was first of all a Benoni. 
He was a left-handed son, a son of sorrow. 
But after a while he changed his base and 
became a Benjamin — a son of blessing — a 
right-handed son. 

And here I think we find our subject to- 
day, about 

"Benjamin the Left-handed, and Benjamin 
the Right-handed Son." 



The Son of the Right Hand. 159 

You know how awkward it is to be left- 
handed, — to write with one's left hand, and 
to work with one's left hand, and to eat 
with one's left hand. 

Now there are boys and girls in every fam- 
ily who are left-handed in their character. 
They do their duties in an awkward, miser- 
able, bungling way. They keep sprawling 
over their morals, and make sad work of 
their every-day duties. 

All they think of is — that which Benjamin 
thought of when he was young, viz. — how 
they can devour their prey, and get a good 
share of things for themselves. 

Now, how can left-handed sons become 
right-handed sons ? How can we change our 
idea of life from the thought of devouring 
the prey, to the thought of dividing the 
spoil ? How can we change our name from 
Benoni, the Son of Sorrow, to Benjamin, the 
Son of Blessing? 

Well, in order to do this, we must follow 
the steps which Benjamin took in his life. 



160 A Father's Blessing. 

I. 

First — We must remember that always 
looking out for self does not bring a blessing. 

A ravening wolf on the mountain side is 
hot- a very agreeable companion. The wolves 
which come out after travellers, as they drive 
in their sleighs through the snow-fields of 
Russia, are not pleasant or agreeable creatures 
to meet. 

A ravening wolf is hungry, and hunger 
makes him cruel, so that all a wolf ever thinks 
of is the matter of devouring the prey. A 
wolf is never ready or willing to divide the 
spoil. 

I can remember at the old Episcopal Acad- 
emy in Philadelphia, when Doctor Hare was 
the principal, and Mr. Bushbeck and Mr. Ed- 
wards were the teachers there, how the boys 
who played marbles down in the play-yard, 
would call out : " Me first ! Me first ! " That 
is, each boy wanted the first shot at the pile 
of marbles. He wanted to devour the prey 
before the other boys would ever have a 
chance. 



The Son of the Right Hand. 161 

" Me first." Ah ! my dear children, how 
we carry this motto with us all through life. 
We want to be first at home ; first in business ; 
first in church matters; first in receiving hon- 
ors and compliments, and first in everything 
which will be for our own interests. But 
this habit of always looking out for our own 
little pet-selves will not make us happy- 
God made us to live for him and not for oth" 
ers, and if we only live for ourselves, and 
grow to be selfish and greedy, we will starve 
a part of our nature, which was made for God, 
and which never can be happy till it finds 
God. 

As I walk the streets of our great cities, 
and see the crowds of people there, I do not 
find many noble-looking faces. People are 
in a hurry; people look fat and coarse; peo- 
ple seem as if they were looking out for them- 
selves, as the wolf does, when he is on the 
scent of his prey. There is a great deal of 
unhappiness in the world to-day, and the 
principle cause of it all is found in the fact 

that this is a commercial age. People are all 
11 



162 A Father's Blessing. 

the time thinking of buying and selling, and 
of what they can get and of what they can 
make. There are a great many Benonis in 
the world to-day; left-handed people, who 
do not realize that always looking out for 
one's self does not bring a blessing. 

Why, I have learnt this very lesson from 
three of my dogs. Let me tell you about 
them. One is a pug and is named Spunk; 
the other two dogs are Skye-terriers, and are 
named Dottie and Pettie. Well, every night 
after supper, last winter, these dogs got into 
the way of whining for crackers. There was 
no such a thing as stopping them. They 
would sit up on their hind legs and whine, 
and whine, and finally they would break out 
into a howl. They used to call out some- 
thing which sounded like " Hello/' at a tele- 
phone office. 

Well, in order to stop all this noise I got 
them each a wooden bowl, and broke up 
plenty of crackers in them. I would put in 
enough crackers to last for a whole evening, 
more than they could possibly eat. And 



The Son of the' Right Hand. 163 

what do you suppose happened? Why, 
these miserable — selfish, Benoni — left-handed 
dogs, -would spend the whole evening, each 
one with his head in his own bowl, not be- 
cause he wanted any more crackers, but be- 
cause each dog was afraid the other dog 
would be after his bowl. So after awhile 
they were cured of wanting more crackers, 
because the responsibility of looking after 
their bowl was too great for them. 

Many a time as I have heard them growl 
over their bowls, too full to eat any more, but 
too selfish to leave their treasure, I have 
thought: "Oh, you dogs, how much you 
are like the people in the world of to-day." 

" In the morning he shall devour the 
prey." 

This was the mark of Benoni — the left- 
handed son of Jacob. 

The first subject of our lesson to-day is : 
that always looking after self does not bring 
a blessing. 



164 A Father's Blessing. 

II. 

Secondly. — We must remember that shar- 
ing our good things with others, is God's 
way of being made happy. 

I was reading the other day about what a 
little peasant boy did for his father in the 
Prussian army. 

The story is as follows : 

During the year 1790, as the French and 
Prussian armies stood face to face, a little 
boy, whose father stood in the Prussian 
ranks, happened to hear that the provisions 
for the army were ill-supplied, and that 
even money was unable to buy food. 

The constant repetition of this sank deep- 
ly into the little fellow's mind, and as he 
knew his mother had plenty of potatoes he 
determined to carry some to his father. 

So anxious was he to set off, that he could 
not wait for his mother's return from the 
neighboring village, but filled a sack with 
potatoes and started away towards the Ehine, 
for he knew that his father's regiment lay 
encamped at Mainz, and he had learnt the 



The Son of the Right Hand. 165 

shortest way thither from the schoolmaster. 

Every place he arrived at with his bur- 
den the people willingly gave him food and 
shelter; and an empty cart, going the direc- 
tion of Mainz, lightened his labor and 
brought him safely into the Prussian camp. 

When he had made known his business 
and his father's name, the captain of the 
latter's company ordered the lad with his 
sack into his tent, and sent for his father. 
The joy of both was indeed great, and the 
happy father kept the little fellow in camp 
until he had recovered from the effects of his 
Jong journey. 

The captain and other officers, who took 
an uncommon liking for the plucky little 
traveller, rewarded him handsomely; as did 
the French, too, into whose hands he after- 
wards fell, for they treated him kindly; and 
their general, Custine, even made him a 
present and set him free again. 

This little fellow was a true Benjamin. 
He was a right-handed son. He was not 
thinking all the time of how he was to 



166 A Father's Blessing; 

" devour the prey." He was thinking how 
he might be able in some way to divide his 
good things with others. 

My dear children, when we have got the 
wolf and dog out of us; I mean by this, when 
we no longer think all the time of how we 
can devour the prey; when we think of 
others and share our good things with them, 
by kind words and deeds, then we are no 
longer Benonis' or left-handed children; we 
are Benjamins' : children of the right hand. 

Benjamin began in the wrong way, but he 
came out all right at the last. In the morn- 
ing he devoured the prey, but at night he 
divided the spoil. Benjamin began life as a 
Benoni; a son of trouble, a " left-handed * 
son in the family, but he crossed over at last 
to the side of the "right-handed" children of 
the household, and ended by being a son ol 
comfort. 

Eemember these two lessons of our sermon 
to-day. 

1st. Always looking out for self does not 
bring a blessing. 



The Son of the Right Hand. 167 

2d. Sharing our good things with others 
is God's way of being happy. 

Now, then, all you Benonis, you left-hand- 
ed boys and girls, get over to the Benjamin 
side of life, the right-handed side, as quickly 
as you can. 

You cannot make this change of base but 
with God's special grace helping you. 

Therefore, pray to the Lord Jesus Christ 
every day for his divine help, to make you 
children of comfort to all about you. 



XII. 

O. P. J., 

or, THE FATHER HIMSELF 

WHO BLESSED HIS BOYS. 

"And when Jacob had made an end of commanding 
his sons, he gathered np his feet into the bed, and yield- 
ed np the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." 
— Genesis xlix. 33. 

<J| WANT in the closing Sermon of this 
^5 course, on J' An Old Man's Blessing, " to 
speak about the father himself who blessed 
his boys. The old patriarch Jacob. 

But perhaps you wonder why I have put 
the letters "0. P. J." to this twelfth Ser- 
mon? 

Let me tell you a story. Some years ago 
there was a broker on Third Street, Philadel- 
phia, who had a large office, and did a large 
business. 

There were a number of young men in the 



170 A Father's Blessing. 

outer office, whom this broker would frequent- 
ly call into his inner office and would say, 
" put down $25," or " put down $50 to the 0. 
P. J. account." Nobody knew what these 
mysterious letters "0. P. J.'' meant. 

Some thought they meant "old public 
journalists." Others thought they meant 
"Junior Order of Presbyterians," while still 
others thought they stood for " Junkets Odd 
and Proper." But no one could find out what 
this mysterious account meant, until at last 
it was discovered that the letters O. P. J. 
stood for the " Old Patriarch Jacob." 

You see the old patriarch Jacob gave one- 
tenth of all his income to the Lord, according 
to a vow which he had made on the night 
when he lay down to sleep in the wilderness 
and saw the vision of the angels of God as- 
cending upon the ladder to Heaven. 

At that time he promised that if the Lord 
would take care of him and bring him back 
again to his father's house in peace, he would 
surely give to the Lord one -tenth of all that 
he acquired. 



A Father who Blessed His Boys. 171 

It was from this vow of Jacob's that the 
Jewish custom of the tithe or tenth part 
arose. 

The Jewish tithes were the tenth part of 
the earnings of the people, and this custom of 
giving the tithes arose from the vow of Ja- 
cob, the father of the Jewish people, on the 
night when he went forth from his father's 
house, and had the vision of Heaven opened. 

So then the " O. P. J." account of this ban- 
ker on Third Street in Philadelphia was his 
" Lord's Treasury " account, or his charity- 
fund. And whenever he gave anything to 
the Lord's cause he used to say " put it down 
to the O. P. J. account." 

Perhaps you would like to have me tell you 
the name of this person. But as this is a ser- 
mon and not a story, I must stop the story 
and go on with the sermon; and it is not 
proper, you know, to call out people's names 
in sermons. 

The old patriarch Jacob then — who had 
been through so many changes and had so 
many strange experiences in life — was dying. 



172 A Father's Blessing. 

He had blessed all his children as they knelt 
by his bed-side, and now that he had finished 
his words and had made an end of blessing 
his sons, we read that he " gathered up his 
feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost, 
and was gathered unto his people." 

He was tired of all the strife and confusion 
of life. 

He was an old man — and the one thing 
left to an old man to do in life is to bless his 
household before he dies. 

I was reading the other day some lines 
written by an old man who was tired of hav- 
ing to live. They* are as follows* 

" I am tired. Heart and feet 
Turn from the busy mart and street ; 
I am tired — rest is sweet. 

I am tired. I have played 
In the sunshine and the shade, 
I have seen the flowers fade.* 

I am tired. I have had 

What has made my spirit glad, 

What has made my spirit sad. 



A Father who Blessed His Boys. 173 

I am tired. Loss and gain ! 
Golden sheaves and scattered grain ! 
Day has not been spent in vain. 

I am tired. Eventide 
Bids me lay my cross aside, 
Bids me in my hopes abide. 

I am tired. God is near, 
Let me sleep without a fear, 
Let me die without a tear. 

I am tired. I would rest 
As the bird within its nest ; 
I am tired. Home is best." 

Now it must have seemed very strange to 
the old patriarch Jacob to look back upon his 
past life and try to make it all out. It will 
seem very strange to us at last when we come 
to die, to look back upon our life. 

As Jacob on his dying bed looked back 
upon his life, he saw that his life was made 
up of three things. 

And the life of each one of us is made up 
of these same three things. 



174 A Father's Blessing. 

I. 

First there is wlwd we have, or what is 
called heredity. 

By heredity or inheritance we mean what 
we have coming down to us by descent from 
our forefathers. 

The cat inherits her sense of prowling after 
her prey at night. The terrier dog inherits 
his sense of scent: the Newfoundland dog 
and the water spaniel inherit their love of 
the water from their ancestors. 

The different kinds of horses inherit their 
own special traits from their forefathers, as 
the race horse, the cart horse, and the car- 
riage horse. 

They are what they are because there is 
something in the blood which goes to make 
them what they are. 

And, my dear children — we have all got 
something within us which lias come down 
to us from our fathers. We are like vessels 
with a heavy cargo inside. "We may have 
passion, anger, pride, jealousy, revenge, greed, 
selfishness, cruelty, and deceit wrapped up in 



A Father who Blessed His Boys. 175 

our natures, as these sons of Jacob had, and 
by-and-bye when we get out into some of 
the hard places of life, something will give a 
lunge or set to our nature in that direction— 
and it will become very evident that we have 
got something on our deck or stowed away 
within, which has come down to us from our 
fathers. Depend upon it the first thing 
which goes to make up our life is — what we 
have. 

II. 

The second thing which goes to make up 
our life is ivhat ive are, or, habit 

It is hard for us ourselves, to know just what 
we are. We do not see ourselves as others 
see us. St. James says in one place that we 
behold our natural face in the glass and go 
our way and forget what manner of person 
we are. Now we are all drifting somewhere. 
We are either drifting into good habits or 
into bad habits. We are either getting bet- 
ter or getting worse. None of us are stand- 
ing still. 



176' A Father's Blessing. 

Why even the icebergs, which seem to be 
great islands, are all floating to the south. 
Nothing in nature stands still. The seasons 
run into one another; the rivers run to the 
sea; the great mountains crumble away. 
And we are all drifting somewhere and into 
some kind of life. Our habits are becoming 
fixed upon us all the time, and, sooner or 
later, will make us their captives. * We ought 
to look into our hearts every little while ; we 
ought to take an inventory of our nature 
as the storekeepers take an account of stock 
every new year — just to see what we have 
upon our shelves. 

Old George Herbert says in one of his 
quaint poems: 

" By all means use some time to be alone : 
Salute thyself : see what thy soul doth wear . 
Dare to look in thy box, for 'tis thine own, 
And tumble up and down what thou find'st there." 

The second thing which goes to make up 
life is ivhat we are— or habit. 



A Father who Blessed His Boys. 177 

III. 

The third thing which goes to make up 
our life is what we have made ourselves, or char- 
acter. 

To make one's own fortune is a great deal 
better after all than to inherit it or to drift 
into it. A thing which we have made for 
ourselves, is generally better and more valua- 
ble to us than a thing which has been given 
to us or which we have stumbled upon by 
accident. 

To conquer ourselves and earn a character 
by a resolute and determined act of the will 
is better for us after all, than to be merely 
innocent, or to be good because some one 
stands over us and makes us good. To earn 
a character is better than to inherit a charac- 
ter or to drift into goodness of living, just 
as to earn a fortune makes us stronger men 
and women than to inherit one, or to stumble 
upon one by accident. 

As the old patriarch Jacob looked back 
upon his life from his dying bed, he must 
have seen that it was made up of these three 



178 A Father's Blessing. 

things: inheritance, and habit, and charac- 
ter. And he must have thanked God that he 
was what he was, not because he had inher- 
ited his character from his father or had 
drifted into it by accident, but that by the 
help of God he had won it for himself 
through the struggles of his life. 

As he looked back over his life, he must 
have seen that it was, after all, that strug- 
gle with himself which he had when he 
wrestled by the brook Jabbok and changed 
his name from Jacob the supplanter to 
Israel, a prince having power and prevailing 
with God — which made him the strong man 
he was when he came to die. 

Jacob's career teaches us that life is made 
up of these three things. 

1st. What we have, or, heredity. 

2d. What we are, or habit 

3d. What we may become, or cliarader. 

And now we are through with these 
twelve sermons on the blessing of the sons 
of Jacob. 

I hope my dear young friends that you 



A Father who Blessed His Boys. 179 

will not forget the lessons which we have 
learned from these far off children of the old 
patriarch. 

If you make your life a blessing to those 
about you, those about you will give you 
their blessing in return. 

Will you not offer this short prayer ? " Oh 
Lord Jesus Christ, give me thy blessing, that 
my life may be a blessing to others, as thou 
hast lived and died to bless this sinning 
world ! " Amen. 



XIII. 
"REALIZED DREAMS." 

"I tlie Lord * * will speak unto him in a dream." 
Numbers xii. 6. 

jrMHIS is a wheelbarrow sermon. Per- 
^4^" haps you never heard of a " wheelbar- 
row sermon " before. Well, I will tell what 
I mean by a wheelbarrow sermon. A 
wheelbarrow is something which runs upon 
one wheel and is pushed by two handles. 
The wheel is the thing on which the barrow 
runs, but there must also be a man to take 
up the two handles of the barrow and push 
the load along. 

So I propose to push this sermon home 
from behind, but I want the sermon to 
move upon a story. So as the story is the 
wheel and the lessons are the load, and I 
am the minister pushing the load from be- 

(181) 



182 A Father's Blessing. 

hind, I have called this sermon about 
u Realized Dreams" a wheelbarrow sermon. 
These words which 1 have taken for our 
text to-day tell us that the Lord said to Moses, 
" If there be a prophet among you, 2" the 
Lord will make myself known unto him in 
a vision, and will speak unto him in a 
dream." 

It is very strange that sometimes our best 
and purest desires and intentions come to us 
with our opening thoughts, as if some of 
God's angels had visited us in the night and 
had given us those holy thoughts of Him. 
And what God was able to do in olden 
times, to His servants and prophets, He is 
able to do to His children to-day. So for 
one I believe in this way God has of speak- 
ing to His children in their dreams. And 
so I have called this sermon, " Realized 
Dreams."' 

The story will come first, for it is the story 
which makes the sermon go, and then the 
lessons will come afterwards. Now for the 
story. 



Realized Dreams. 183 

In the Cummington churchyard, far up 
among the Berkshire Hi] Is, in Massachu- 
setts, is a church which is called " Cudnor 
Church." 

You will not find this church on the map 
by its name, or in the Diocesan report, but 
nevertheless there it stands. 

There was a little girl in this church, 
whose name was Elsie, and on a certain 
Christmas Eve she was in the church along 
with the others dressing the church for the 
services on Christmas day. Elsie had a 
hard time of it with her relations, because 
they did not believe as she believed. Her 
uncle John and brother Tom and aunt Cora 
used to make a great deal of fun at Elsie's 
expense. Well, as I was saying, on this 
Christmas Eve they were all in the church 
helping to deck it with evergreens and 
boughs and hollyberries. Elsie's uncle John 
had been having a good laugh over a mis- 
take Elsie had made when she was a little 
girl. Her uncle John had asked Elsie what 
a missionary was, after one of the missionary 



184 A Father's Blessing. 

meetings which had been held in the 
church, and Elsie had replied that they 
lived in the water and ate up little heathen 
children. But Elsie was only four years old 
when she made this mistake of calling croco- 
diles, missionaries. 

Her brother Tom, too, had a great deal of 
fun at Elsie's expense, because she had said 
that a friend of hers at school had a brother 
at a boarding-school in Maine, where, he 
said, they had " bears and religious privi- 
leges '* in their country. But this was not all. 
Elsie's aunt Cora, who was president of the 
Bishop Seabury Prayer-Book Society, did not 
believe in foreign missions, and she thought 
Elsie was very foolish to want to give the 
money of the church to missions, when they 
needed a new carpet in the church and a set 
of white hangings for Christmas and Easter. 
But Elsie's Sunday-school class had four 
quarterly collections a year, and the money 
of this class was given to four little heathen 
children. 

First there was little Sing Paw, a Chinese 



Realized Dreams. 185 

girl in Shanghai, then there was Grebo 
Dick, an African boy at the Cape Mount 
school at Cape Palmas, in Africa. Hans Lit- 
tleman was an Esquimau boy. He was 
the third heathen child Elsie and her fellow 
scholars helped along. They had heard of 
him through a speech which Archdeacon 
Kirkby had made in their church, and they 
resolved to give one-fourth of their annual 
collection to this little fellow. 

Ben Hassan w^as their fourth heathen ward. 
He was an Arab boy, in Dr. Jessup's school 
in Beirut, Syria, He had the remaining 
fourth of Elsie's collections. 

Not content, however, with giving money 
to these children, and then thinking no more 
about them, little Elsie had secured their 
photographs, and had them each framed and 
hung up on the wall by the old square pew 
where her class and their teacher sat. 

So it came to pass that on this particular 
Christmas Eve, while uncle John and bro- 
ther Tom, and aunt Cora had been trimming 
up the church for the services on Christmas 



186 A Father's Blessing. 

day, little Elsie had been putting a wreath 
around each of these four pictures of their 
little heathen wards. 
But 

there was one thing 

Elsie could not 

understand. 
She could not understand how all of a sud- 
den she had followed the crowd, and had 
gone into a garden. There was ever so 
much light all around, and when she asked 
the people what it all meant, they replied 
that they were all going to meet the Lord 
Jesus Christ in Paradise, and that this was 
the way to get there. Presently she met 
little Sing Paw from China ; she knew her 
by the picture; and then she saw Grebo 
Dick ; he was running in to meet the Lord 
Jesus Christ ; and Hans Littleman was hur- 
rying in along with the others, and Ben 
Hassan was waving his red Turkish fez cap 
with a black tassel to it. They were all 
hurrying along with the others into the light 
of the beautiful garden. Elsie could not 



Realized Dreams. 187 

make it out. " Ob, I'm so glad we helped 
Sing Paw and Grebo Dick and Hans Little- 
man and Ben Hassan, '' cried Elsie, " but, 
dear me ; oh, where am I ?" 

* * * # * 

"You've been asleep, Elsie, dear," replied 
her aunt Cora. " You fell asleep on the pile 
of greens as you were putting wreaths 
around those absurd pictures of the little 
heathen children. Do you ever expect to 
meet them in heaven, Elsie ?" 

"I have met them already, aunt Cora," 
replied Elsie. • ; I have just parted from them 
this very minute. I have seen them this 
very night in my dream. Some day I will 
see them with my own eyes." 

Now then, this story is the ivheel upon 
which the rest of the sermon is to run, 
this sermon which I have called my wheel- 
barrow sermon. 

Now comes the pushing part. 

If we want to realize our dreams in the 
Christian life, we must all have three rules 
in our life. 



188 A Father's Blessing. 

I. 

First of all, ive must have the rule of pray- 
ing. This is the first rule in our Christian 
rule of three. This is the first fact in the 
Christian life for us. It is the beginning 
of everything for us. We find that our 
Lord Jesus Christ, though He was the Son 
of God, always prayed to His Father in 
Heaven before He began any great work, 
or after He had been healing the sick and 
the miserable. He prayed all night before 
He chose His disciples to be His compan- 
ions and followers. And in the first chap- 
ter of St. Mark's Gospel we read these 
words: "And He healed many that were 
sick of divers diseases, and cast out many 
devils, and in the morning, rising up a 
great while before day, He went out, and 
departed into a solitary place, and there 
prayed." What an example Jesus here sets 
us of beginning our different duties with 
prayer. If He was the Son of God, and yet 
needed to pray to His Father in Heaven 
before He undertook any great work, how 



Realized Dreams. 189 

much more should we, who are sinful, while 
He was sinless, learn to pray to our Heaven- 
ly Father before we undertake any hard 
duty. We ought to think of prayer to God 
as a petition which we make in a court. 
We must go about it in the right way. We 
must know what we want, and then having 
complied with all the legal requirements, 
we must leave the matter in the hands of 
the court. Prayer is nothing more than pe- 
titioning God, just as wex petition some 
human court of justice. There is just as 
much reason in praying to God as there is in 
petitioning a court to grant us our request. 
If it is right for us to have what we ask for, 
and if it is within the range of the court's 
ruling, we will most probably receive an an- 
swer to our petition. And so it is with 
prayer, which is after all only a petition to 
God in his own law court. 

When the great explorer and missionary, 
Dr. Livingstone, was found by Stanley's ex- 
ploring party in mid Africa, he was found 
dead upon his knees. Dr. Livingstone died 



190 A Father's Blessing. 

praying, and he was not a man, with all his 
scientific knowledge, to be a believer in su- 
perstition. He wanted to do a great work 
for Africa, and he knew that the first rule of 
success in the Christian life, the first rule in 
the Christian rule of three, was " The rule of 
praying" 

II. 

The second rule in the Christian rule of 
three is tlie rule of giving. 

We hear a great many people say to-day 
that God is not real to them. But He is not 
real to them because they are not real to 
Him. 

The Jews of old time never had any trou- 
ble in finding God a real God to them. 
They gave Him a real place in their lives, 
and He became as much of a reality to them 
as a bank becomes a reality to us in which 
we deposit our money. Anything in which 
we deposit our money or funds becomes a 
reality to us. But if we never give any- 
thing to God or His cause in the world, or 



Realized Dreams. 191 

if we think that we must wait until we can 
say that charity begins at home, then we will 
never find an unseen God a living reality to 
us. If you don't give anything for God, and 
if you have no place for Him in your life, He 
will never be a reality to you. It is the rule 
of giving which binds God to you and makes 
Him a living reality to you. 

A lady said to me the other day, '• I do 
wash you would not give out so many notices 
of appeals for Foreign Missions. I don't be- 
lieve in Foreign Missions, and never give 
one cent for them. I think charity begins 
at home.'' And all I said to her was this: 
" Do you think the Saviour of the world 
died only for your little set ? I would like to 
know where you and I would have been if 
the Church of old had said, we don't believe 
in Foreign Missions ! You and I would have 
been Druids, offering up our children in sac- 
rifice, if the Church of the past had talk- 
ed this kind of nonsense which you, a bap- 
tized Christian, are talking to-day." We 
must give to others, as others have given to 



192 A Father's Blessing. 

us. The second rule in the Christian rule 
of three, is the rule of giving. 

III. 

The third rule in the Christian rule of 
three is the rule of working. 

Praying and giving are each excellent 
things to bring about our desired ends, but 
the third rule of Christian success, the 
rule of working, must crown and supple- 
ment the other two rules. 

There is a great deal of criticism going on 
to-day upon all people who try to do any- 
thing. The newspapers find fault with peo- 
ple if they try to do anything. Critics 
write their pieces on every book, or picture, 
or piece of music, or work of art that comes 
out, and show the mistakes the people have 
made who have done the work, and how dif- 
ferent it ought to be, and how much better 
it could be done if others had only taken 
their advice. All the generals who lost 
battles in the war of the Eebellion are writ- 
ing pieces to-day in the magazines, showing 



Realized Dreams. 193 

the many mistakes of those who were in 
command, and just how the whole affair 
ought to have been handled. 

Now, criticism is all very good, and we 
ought never to be above beiug criticised, 
only, an hour's honest work ourselves is bet- 
ter than whole days of criticism of others. 

Let us learn to do something in this world 
for the Lord Jesus Christ and for our fellow- 
men, and not to get into the way of stand- 
ing off with our eye-glasses and criticising 
the Lord's hard workers, and saying just 
how it ought to be done. If we can make a 
clock go, or a wagon go, or a horse go, or a 
boy go, or a Sunday-school class or a church 
go, it is a great deal better after all than 
having a score of doctors standing by and 
telling us just how the thing ought to be 
done. Working is always better than talk- 
ing. The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. 
We are never told that He loveth a mere 
talker, no matter how long or well he may 
talk. 

This then, my dear children, is my wheei- 
13 



194 A Father's Blessing. 

barrow sermon to-day. The story was the 
wheel, and it came first; the lessons a»e the 
barrow and they came afterwards. 

Little Elsie in Cudnor Church believed in 
praying for the heathen, in giving for the 
heathen, and in working for the heathen. 

And she had her dream fulfilled, for she 
saw Sing Paw, Grebo Dick, Hans Littleman 
and Ben Hassan in her dream that Christ- 
mas Eve night at Cudnor Church, and she 
knows that she will see them all some day, 
and that the same Lord who spoke to her 
once in a dream will speak to her again in 
reality. 

So then, my dear children, if we want to 
see what we are hoping for come true, let us 
keep on using these same three rules in the 
Christian life. L The rule of praying. II, 
The rule of giving. III. The rule of work- 
ing. 

And in this way the Lord will answer 
our prayers and will help ns to realize our 
dreams, which we dream for him. 



XI Y. 
SERMONS FROM THE CLOCK. 

u The sun to rale by day."— Psalm cxxxvi 8. 

CLOCK is a very wonderful thing. 
Perhaps you have never stopped to 
think what a wonderful thing it is. 

Suppose then to-day that you stop for a 
few moments while we talk together about 
some lessons from tlie clock. 

We get the idea of time from the sun. 

We read in the first chapter of the book of 

Genesis that " God made two great lights; 

the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule 

the night; he made the stars also.' ; And in 

this 136th Psalm, which was probably written 

by Ezra, and was sung by the Jews on the 

occasion of their return to their own land 

again, when they rebuilt their temple, the 

praise of the people is given to God, in the 

(195) 



196 A Father's Blessing. 

oft-repeated refrain of this well-known 
Psalm, as the priests and Levites sang it 
antiphonally on either side of the Sanctuary, 
— " His mercy endureth forever." 

And thus they sang these words of our 
text to-day : — 

"To him that made great lights: for his 
mercy endureth forever: 

The sun to rule by day: for his mercy en- 
dureth forever: 

The moon and stars to rule by night: for 
his mercy endureth forever." 

Now, when we come to think of it, we 
find that we cannot get on in life without a 
clock or a watch, or some standard of time. 

But the sun is after all the true standard 
of all time. All our ideas of hours and min- 
utes, and nights and days, and months and 
years come from the sun and the moon. 

The sea captain in mid-ocean finds out 
what the true time is by taking his observa- 
tions with the sextant, an instrument which 
enables him to look at the sun, and find just 
where the sun is on his maps. Before clocks 



Sermons from the Clock. 197 

-were invented. King Alfred discovered a way 
of telling the hours of the day by means of a 
candle, which burned just so many sections 
in the course of twenty-four hours. 

He placed his hour-candle in a horn lan- 
tern, to keep it from being blown out, and 
this was the way they told the time in the 
palaces and monasteries of England. Then, 
long before clocks were invented, people had 
hour-glasses, such as little girls have nowa- 
days when they practice upon the piano. 
This is what the old poets mean by " the 
sands of life " running out. 

This is the way the ancients knew what 
time it was. But after all, the sun-dial, like 
our modern clock, had the sun for its stand- 
ard, so that the sun which rules the day is 
after all the thing from which a clock gets 
its idea of time. 

Every business in the world is run by the 
standard of time which the clock keeps. 

Railroads, steamboats, factories, schools, 
officers, churches, hotels, all are governed by 
the clock. 



198 A Father's Blessing. 

The clock on the mantelpiece, or the old 
grandfather's clock on the stairs, is the great 
regulator of our life. 

When we take the works of a clock to be 
mended, how vacant the big round hole 
seems, where our dear old friend and coun- 
sellor used to be ! And it has always seemed 
to me that the person who denies the exist- 
ence of God takes out of this world the face 
of the world's standard and regulator. Life 
seems just as meaningless and empty with- 
out a belief in God, as the home seems when 
the face of the clock has been taken away* 
and there is nothing but a vacant hole in the 
place where our dear old friend has been. 

There was a Welshman once, whose name 
was James Ap Jones. He used to spend his 
evenings very frequently at the ale-house, 
until it was morning. When he came home 
his wife, who always used to sit up for him, 
would call out, " James Ap Jones, look at the 
clock ! look at the clock ! " This used to 
wear him out so, that after he went out to 
the ale-house, he would frequently return 



Sermons from the Clock. 199 

and set the clock back, so that it would 
not be late when he returned. But his 
wife found out his trick, and used to keep 
on with her one remark whenever he return- 
ed, " Look at the clock, Mr. Jones, look at 
the clock." The clock was the judge which 
always condemned him. Now, my dear 
children, I want you to-day to 

" Look at the clock. " 

We will take the clock all to pieces, and 
then put it together again, and find out the 
lessons which it teaches us. 



First of all I would say, that the face of a 
clock is of no use without the hands of a 
clock. A clock without hands might just as 
well be a painted clock. Children in the 
country very often have what they call a 
" turnip watch." That is, they take a turnip 
and shave off or pare off one side of it, and 
then on that open face they paint the hours 
and the hands of a clock. But that " turnip 



200 A Father's Blessing. 

watch " is of no use whatever, simply because 
the hands remain in the same position, they 
do not move round the face of the clock, and 
therefore do not tell the true time of the day. 
It is the hands of a clock which give char- 
acter to the face of a clock. The hands show 
whether there is life within the clock or not, 
and whether or not the clock is going too 
fast or too slow, or just right. Here is the 
first lesson which the clock teaches us : It is 
the hands which give character to the face. 

What we do with our hands, shows itself in 
our life, and our face is always the tell-tale of 
our character. You can nearly always tell 
what a person is by his face. What he does 
with his hands shows itself in his face. A 
painter, a sculptor, a clergyman, a doctor, a 
lawyer, generally show by their faces what 
they are. 

I saw, not long ago, on a bench in the 
Pittsfield Jail, a row of criminals. 

They had chains and handcuffs on their 
arms; one man had stolen, another man was 
a forger, a third had been in a drunken brawl 



Sermons from the Clock. 201 

and had shot a companion. But the evil 
works which they had done showed in the 
face of each of them. The works of their 
hands told in their faces. 

This then is the first lesson which we learn 
when we " look at the clock." 

The face of a clock is of no use without 
the hands of a clock. 

II. 

Secondly, we learn from looking at a clock 
that the hands of a clock are of no use with- 
out the works of a clock. 

If the hands of a clock are to go at all, 
there must always be some works back of the 
hands to make them go. 

When the English first went to China with 
their steam vessels, the Emperor of China 
was so much pleased with the appearance 
of the steamers, that he told his ship build- 
ers to instantly make two such ships such as 
the English had. So the Chinese carpenters 
went to work and built two or three steam- 
ers out of some old Chinese junks, and in or- 



202 A Father's Blessing. 

der to make the vessels look like the English 
steamer, they put shavings and sticks on fire 
down in a big iron cauldron in the vessels' 
holds, and had the smoke come up through 
a large red pipe. They were very fine look- 
ing ships, and made a great deal more smoke 
than the English steamers. There was only 
one trouble with them, however. They 
wouldn't go, simply because they had no 
works inside. 

The smoke-stacks on those Chinese war 
steamers were of no use, simply because 
there were no works with which they were 
connected. 

" Mary," said a Sunday-school teacher one 
day to her little scholar, " Mary, you say 
you must resist the works of the devil; 
what are the works of the devil ?" 

Mary did not know. She was a little 
girl, and her father was a clock-maker. 
She had often seen her father take his clocks 
and watches to pieces and mend them. So 
presently she replied, " Please ma'am, I 
think the devil's works must be what is 



Sermons from the Clock. 203 

inside of him, and what he puts into our 
in sides." 

The teacher and the children could not 
help laughing over little Mary's mistake, 
but her answer was a very good one after 
all. 

It is our good or bad works within us, our 
good or bad thoughts, desires, and inclina- 
tions which make our hands do good or bad 
deeds, which good or bad deeds show in 
our face. The second lesson we learn from 
looking at a clock is this : The hands of a 
clock are of no use without the works of a 
clock. 

III. 

Thirdly we learn from a clock that the 
works of a clock are of no use without a reg- 
. ulator. 

The regulator is that part of a clock's 
machinery which keeps the works in good 
running order. 

The regulator keeps the clock from going 
too fast or from going too slow, and in this 



204 A Father's Blessing. 

way makes the hours and minutes of the 
day correspond to the sun's time in the 
heavens. 

If a clock does not go right it is better that 
it should not go at all, for then it will at 
least be right twice a day, but a clock that is 
not set right, and is never regulated, is never 
right at any time during the whole twenty- 
four hours. 

The regulator keeps the clock going right, 
and is therefore of great importance in the 
clock's machinery. 

And here we learn our third lesson from 
" looking at the clock." 

We may go too fast towards sin, or too 
slowly towards our duty. 

Therefore God has given to each of us a 
regulator. St. John said of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, " That was the true light which light- 
eth every man that cometh into the world." 

That regulator of our lives and character 
which is implanted in every one of us is our 
conscience. It is the rule of right within us. 
It is or ought to be as much the regulator of 



Sermons from the Clock. 205 

our characters, as the mysterious regulator of 
a clock is the secret unseen power which di- 
rects and rules the clock's action. 

This is the third lesson which we learn 
from " looking at the clock." 

IV. 

Fourthly, we learn that the regulator of 
a clock is of no use without a key to the 
clock. 

It is not every key which will wind up every 
clock. Every clock must have its own spec- 
ial key which will fit it. Some keys are too 
large, other keys are too small. Sometimes 
it is a very hard thing to find a key which 
will fit our watch. The face of the clock may 
be perfect; the hands may be right ; the 
regulator may be in perfect order, and yet 
the clock will not go unless it has a key to 
wind it up. 

Now, how is it with us ? What is the best 
key which fits into our hearts and winds 
them up so that they will keep good time ? 
Let me tell you. A great many years ago 



236 A Father's Blessing. 

the Moravians in Germany sent out some 
missionaries into Greenland to convert the 
poor Esquimau people out there. These 
missionaries began by preaching to them 
about the divine attributes of God, and 
the arguments which prove the being of 
God. 

It was very good preaching, but some- 
how or other it did not take hold of the 
natives, and nobody was converted. After 
preaching in this way for about a year they 
thought they would try another kind of 
preaching. 

So they began to tell these poor heathen 
Greenlanders about the love of the Lord Jesus 
Christ in coming down into this world to 
save it. 

Instantly the Greenlanders became inter- 
ested. This was something they could take 
hold of, and very soon a great number came 
to the missionaries to be baptized. This hey 
fitted into their hearts. The other key did not 
fit at all. It could not make them go. This 
key fitted their needs exactly. 



Sermons from the Clock. 207 

My dear children, the law of obedience to 
God through the love of Jesus Christ, is the 
one key which will fit into all our hearts. 
This is the key which will wind us up to the 
completest service of our Father in Heaven. 
Nothing on earth will make us go, and will 
help us to keep better time than love to Jesus 
Christ our Saviour. 

V. 

Fifthly, we learn that the key of a clock is 
of no use unless it is used. 

If you keep the key hanging up on a nail 
and never apply it to your clock it will be of 
no use to you. You might just as well have 
a wooden key. 

If you have a horse and never use him : if 
you have a book and never read it ; if you 
have a new suit of clothes and never wear 
them, they will never do you any good; you 
might just as well be without them. 

And, my dear children, if you don't make 
any use of the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot 
expect that he will do you any good. 



208 A Father's Blessing. 

I have seen people in Europe in the great 
cathedrals kneeling down and praying to a 
wooden image of the Saviour on the cross. 
Perhaps you may say, how foolish it is of 
them to pray to a wooden image. But is 
your Lord Jesus Christ a real Saviour to you, 
or is He only a wooden Jesus ? Do you go 
to him in your troubles ? Do you make use 
of Him ? Do you ask Him to help you in 
your daily life, with your duties, with your 
studies, and with your many temptations? 

How can you expect your clock to go un- 
less you use your key ? 

How can you expect to be a true Christ- 
ian unless you make use of the Lord Jesus 
Christ? 

These then are the lessons which we learn 
from looking at the clock : 

1st. The face of the clock is of no use 
without the hands of a clock. 

2d. The hands of a clock are of no use 
without the works of a clock. 

3d. The works of a clock are of no use 
without the regulator. 



Sermons from the Clock. 209 

4th. The regulator of a clock is of no use 
without a key to the clock. 

5th. The key of a clock is of no use unless , 
it is used. 

Or in other words, these are the lessons 
of our subject : 

1. What we do with our hands shows it- 
self in our face. 

2. "What we do with our hands is either 
good or bad. 

3. We either have or have not a regulator 
in our conscience. 

4. Our conscience is either rusty or is rul- 
ed by the will of God. 

5. Our conscience is of no use unless it 
is used. 

You know if you keep a key hanging up 
on a nail all the time it is of no use. To be 
of any use you must use it. 

A clock is of no use unless it is wound up, 
set, and is going. 

Here in this world — old lesson though it 
be — there are only two keys which fit 
your nature. God and Satan are each trying 



210 A Father's Blessing. 

to wind you up for the service of good or 
for the service of evil. 

Dear children, — make use of the Lord Jesus 
Christ just as you would use a hey. Use Him 
to set you going right and to wind you up 
day by day for God's service. 



XV. 
DOGS. 

"Beware of dogs." — Phillippiasts iii. 2. 

" ^JJ^^^-^^ of the dog" — is an old piece 
2QJ of advice. In the ruins of Pompeii the 
traveller to-day comes across this Latin motto 
in front of one of the old Soman houses, 
" Cave Canem," or, beware of the dog. 

We do not see this sign as often now-a- 
days as we used to do in days gone by. 
Either the dogs are not as fierce as they used 
to be, or else people are not so much afraid 
of them, or perhaps the day for using the 
dog as a scare-crow has passed by. 

The Jews were not fond of horses or dogs. 
In the book of Deuteronomy we read these 
words, " Thou shalt not bring the price of a 
dog into the house of the Lord thy God for 

any vow." That is, the Jews were not al- 

(211) 



212 A Father's Blessing. 

lowed to give a clog tax for any missionary 
or charitable purpose. 

The prophet Isaiah says in a certain place, 
in speaking of the false shepherds, "They 
are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, 
lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they 
are greedy dogs which can never howl 
enough, and they are shepherds that cannot 
understand." 

When St. Paul said, " Beware of dogs,' 7 he 
was writing to the Christians at Philippi. 
He meant by dogs, bad men, or men who 
gave trouble. He knew very well what it 
was to have a crowd of barking, biting men 
at his heels, who were like a pack of howling 
dogs after him. His foes pursued him and 
followed him from one place to another, like 
hounds after their prey. So he said to his 
followers at Philippi, " Beware of dogs," 
meaning thereby, beware of those men who 
will pursue you and hunt after you, as dogs 
never give up the chase, and follow with 
eager search the scent of the game. 

Now, what kind of dogs ought we to be- 



Dogs. 213 

ware of? Let us look at some of the spec- 
imens in this moral dog-show to-day. 

I. 

Beware of the snarling dogs. 

There are some little dogs who do not bite 
much, and can never do any great harm, who 
yet keep up a snapping kind of bark all the 
time. 

Everybody about them is kept in a state 
of discomfort. The cows go for them with 
their horns, but can never toss them. The 
horses paw at them, but can never kick them. 
The barnyard fowls run away from them as 
fast as they can get off the ground, and 
every one is made uncomfortable by the pres- 
ence of these snarling dogs. 

Beware of these snarling dogs. 

Don't have snarling companions: don't get 
into the company of snapping dogs, or else 
you too will become one of the pack. 

Don't encourage a "snarling habit." Don't 
argue with snarling dogs; let them alone. 
The more you talk with them, the more they 



214 A Father's Blessing. 

will snarl at you. The only way to stop a 
snarling dog is to stoop down and pick up a 
stone and hit him, so that his snarl is turned 
into a yelp. The only way to stop a snarling 
boy or man is to hit his conscience with some 
moral duty. Then his snarling stops and he 
runs away to do his duty. Beware then, first 
of all, of " snarling dogs." 

II. 

Beware of mongrel dogs. 

Some dogs are open-hearted and honest, 
and will look you full in the eye, like the 
honest dogs they really are. I have seen 
colly dogs and grayhounds which have had 
the most lovely, tender, beautiful eyes, all full 
of soul and sentiment and moral sense. Then 
there are other dogs which are sulking, cow- 
ardly, sneaking dogs. They will wait their 
time until they can get a chance to growl at 
you, or bite you, or run off with your dinner 
on the sly. These sneaking dogs are nearly 
always mongrels. That is, they have got no 
good blood in them* they haven't any pedi- 



Dogs. 215 

gree. Nobody knows who their parents or 
relations are, or what their bringing up 
has been. These mongrel dogs run the 
street by day and night ; eat what they 
can steal or pick up, sleep wherever they 
can find a box to sleep in, and finally 
are caught by the dog-catcher, are placed 
in the pound for one week, and are then 
poisoned. 

There are mongrel men and mongrel boys. 
Mongrel people are those who have no plan 
or purpose in life ; who live from hand to 
mouth, and who never can tell from one day 
to another where their money is to come from 
or how they are going to get their daily food. 
Those people live in the streets, and in their 
friends' and neighbors' houses. They seem 
to have no homes of their own. They beg 
or borrow money; but are averse to doing a 
day's hard work. They have no principles or 
guiding habits ; they do not move in any di- 
rection, they drift with the tide of people; 
keep in the midst of the crowd, live a kind of 
circus life, and at last are caught in some 



216 A Father's Blessing. 

great scrape or trouble and die a miserable 
or ignominious death. 

Children, beware of these dogs ; do not as- 
sociate with these mongrels, lest you become 
one of this same class. 

III. 

Beware of mad-dogs. 

There is nothing more dreadful in all the 
list of diseases than the awful disease of hy- 
drophobia, which rises from the virus or poi- 
son, coming from the bite of a mad-dog. 

We always give a mad-dog plenty of room 
in the road. If a tree is near, it is a wise 
thing to climb up the tree. If a fence or a 
wall is close at hand, the most prudent thing 
we can do is to jump over the wall or get be- 
hind the fence. The mad-dog with froth and 
foam at his lips, and with his tongue hang- 
ing out his jaws is an ugly customer to meet. 
If he should pierce our flesh with his poison- 
ed teeth we are at once candidates for Pas- 
teur's treatment, if he can save us even then. 

Nothing is more terrible in the crowded 



Dogs. 217 

street on a hot and muddy dogday in August 
than to hear the cry of " Mad-dog ! Mad- 
dog ! " 

Beware of mad men and fierce and pas- 
sionate boys. There is murder hidden in 
anger. There is death concealed in the fury 
and passion of hate. 

Cain was a murderer in spirit before he 
killed his brother Abel, by the side of his up- 
raised altar. Jesus said that whosoever hated 
his brother without a cause was a murderer. 
St. John says in his first Epistle, " Whoso- 
ever hateth his brother is a murderer ; and 
ye know that no murderer hath eternal life 
abiding in him." 

It is said of Julius Csesar, that when he 
was provoked he used to repeat the whole Eo- 
man alphabet before he suffered himself to 



I was reading not long ago about a Scotch 
gardener who had a very fiery temper. He 
married a milkmaid who used to storm at the 
cows and get very angry at them. Every- 
body said that when they got married they 



218 A Father's Blessing. 

would have terrible times, and would lead a 
cat and dog life. But instead of this they 
lived very happily together. At last one of 
the neighbors said to the wife, " Jennie, how 
is it that you and your husband get on so 
well together ? We all supposed that you 
would have a very stormy time with youi 
husband." 

" Ach, dear no/' replied Jennie. " I gei 
angry, and Sandy gets angry, but we've 
made it a rule never both to be angry at the same 
time" 

Here is another story about the way in 
which one of these mad-dogs got over his 
attacks of anger. 

A deacon, naturally a high-tempered man, 
was accustomed to beat his oxen over the 
head, as all his neighbors did. When he 
became a Christian, his cattle became re- 
markably docile. A friend inquired into the 
secret. " Why," said the deacon, " formerly, 
when my oxen were a little contrary, I flew 
into a passion, and beat them unmercifully. 
This made the matter worse. Now when 



Dogs. 219 

they do not behave well, I go behind the 
load, and sit down and sing Old Hundred. 
I don't know how it is, but the psalm tune 
has a surprising effect on my oxen." 

Children, beware of these mad-dogs ! try 
to tame your tempers and they won't hurt 
you. 

IV. 

Beware of stubborn dogs. 

The bull-clog is the type of the stubborn 
dog. He hangs on to whatever he has 
taken in his grip, whether he is in the right 
or in the wrong. He is a big, stubborn, 
pugnacious dog. There is no arguing or 
coaxing with a bull-dog. When he gets his 
jaw fastened to an adversary, one or the 
other of them has got to die. 

Persevering people are all right, but stub- 
born people are alPwrong. 

A mule might be a heroic animal if he 
were only persevering; but there is nothing 
heroic about a mule, because a mule is not 
persevering^ he is only stubborn. A stub- 



220 A Father's Blessing. 

born man is one who will not give in even 
when he knows that he is wrong. Stubborn 
people are very hard to get on with. They 
are very unpleasant to have as companions. 
Beware of these stubborn people. Beware 
of the stubborn dogs. 



Beware of fancy dogs. 

There are some dogs which are good for 
nothing. They have to be washed and 
cared for and only live to be petted. They 
can't do anything for a living. They never 
could catch a mouse or a rat, or defend the 
house at night. If a burglar should get in 
the house at night they would be of no more 
use than a canary-bird. At the great dog 
show in New York last spring, I saw a great 
number of these fancy dogs, poodles and 
lapdogs and King Charles spaniels. 

Now, there are a great many children, 
and a great many grown up people, who 
are just like these fancy dogs. There is no 
use for them. They have nothing to do: 



Dogs. 221 

they can't take care of themselves, and if 
they are not spoiled and petted they do not 
know what to do with themselves. 

These people have no true idea of what 
the meaning of life is, or of what the world 
really is. They want everybody to come 
to their dog basket and pet them and coax 
them, and give them cake and candy, and 
if they do not get what they want they 
whine and are miserable. 

This is a very poor kind of companion. 
Beware . of these merely ornamental peo* 
pie. 

Beware of fancy dogs. 

VI. 

Beware of dogs which are blood-hounds. 

Blood-hounds are fearful animals. They 
have got the scent in them for human blood. 
They were used in old times in tracking run- 
away slaves in the South and in following up 
the wandering serfs or slaves in Eussia. They 
pursue their victims to death. They never 
lose their scent. They never get off their trail. 



222 A Father's Blessing. 

They bark and bay through, the forest and 
over the lake, and never give up until they 
have tracked their victim down to death. 

And there are men and women to-day, my 
dear children, who will pursue you to bitter 
death. The drunkard, the gambler, the fast 
liver, the jockey, the sensualist, the destroy- 
er of man's honor and woman's innocence — 
are blood-hounds. They are after their 
prey continually. They will not stop until 
they have killed their victim. 

When I was in St. Louis over a year ago, 
I stayed at the same hotel where Maxwell 
the murderer had killed his victim and had 
packed his body in the trunk. 1 was at the 
Southern Hotel when the body of poor Prel- 
ler was found in room 144. That companion 
of his, the guilty murderer, had planned 
how he was to get Preller's money, for 
weeks ahead. He had hunted his victim 
down, just as the blood-hounds used to do 
in the fearful days of slavery in the South. 

Beware! beware! of these companions. 
Beware of the blood- hounds of the soul ! 



Dogs. 223 

And now in closing let me say, " Beware 
of all dogs." 

These are some of the dogs we ought to 
be afraid of. 

1st. Snarling dogs. 

2d. Mongrel dogs. 

3d. Mad-dogs. 

4th. Stubborn dogs. 

5th. Fancy dogs. 

6th. Blood-hounds. 

David says in one of his psalms, " Dogs 
have compassed me round about." 

These dog-like companions are around 
at every turn in life. Let us seek by the 
help of our Lord Jesus Christ to get the 
victory over all our temptations and our 
tempters. And thus it will not be in vain 
that we have heeded the advice of the apos- 
tle Paul, " Beware of Dogs." 



xin. 

THE POWER OF A FACT. 

tl And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian — the father 
of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross."— St. Mark 
xv. 21. 

jTfl^HERE are a great many kinds of power 
J3^ in the world. There is the power 
which is in nature, in the gale at sea, in the 
tornado upon land, in the bolt of lightning 
in the thunderstorm. 

Then there is the power which is in human 
machinery, in the electric plant, in the print- 
ing press, in the steam engine, and in the 
water wheel. 

I want to speak to you to-day about an- 
other kind of power from either of these. I 
mean the power which there is in a fact. 

This sermon then is about " the power of a 
fact." 

15 (225) 



226 A Father's Blessing. 

Let me tell you what I mean by this. AD 
you school children know what it is to study 
American history. 

You read in your history about the Boston 
tea party, and how the Americans, disguised 
as Indians, threw the tea overboard into Bos- 
ton Harbor. Or you read about Washington 
crossing the Delaware to fight the Hessians 
at Trenton, or going to Cambridge to take 
command of the army there, or of Abraham 
Lincoln raising the flag on Independence 
Hall on Washington's birth-day, February 
22d, 1861, as he was on his way to Washing- 
ton to be inaugurated as President, at the 
breaking out of the civil war. Perhaps you 
may have seen pictures in your school-books 
of these different events ; and these pictures 
may have helped you to remember the facts 
of history, for there is great power in pictures. 
Bnt now, suppose you go to Trenton, and 
see for yourself the exact spot where Wash- 
ington crossed on that stormy Christmas Eve, 
or you go out to Cambridge and see with 
your own eyes the great elm-tree under which 



The Power of a Fact. 227 

Washington assumed command of the Con- 
tinental army, or you go down to the wharf 
where the tea was thrown overboard, and 
the old fact of history comes to you with a 
new meaning as you see for yourself the 
very spot where the event took place. 

Then the power which there is in the fact 
of history comes home to you with a new 
meaning. You believe the far off fact be- 
cause you have seen for yourself the place 
where the event took place. 

I have read, in the latest American history, 
about Mr. Lincoln raising the flag on Inde- 
pendence Hall. But this fact of history is 
made more real to me because as a college 
boy I saw him, with my own eyes, pull the 
cord which raised the flag to the spire over 
the Liberty Bell on Independence Hall, on 
February 22d, 1861 — -just before the civil 
war began. 

' In an old palace at Delft in Holland, visit- 
ors are shown the very spot where the as- 
sassin Balthazar Gerard stood when he shot 
down the faithful father of his people, Wil- 



228 A Father's Blessing. 

Ham of Orange. At Holy rood palace in Ed- 
inburgh, travellers can see the back stairs 
where Kizzio, the secretary of Mary Queen 
of Scots, was stabbed, and down which his 
dead body was dragged. 

And at Canterbury Cathedral in England, 
the very step in the chancel is shown to 
tourists on which the axe of the three assas- 
sins clave in two the skull of Thomas a Beck- 
et, as he was saying Vespers at the altar in 
the Cathedral. 

There is a great power in the fact of a fad. 
Nothing can ever rob us of the fact that the 
event has certainly taken place. 

And when we think of that greatest 
event of all this world's history, the presence 
of Jesus Christ among men, nothing can 
ever rob us of the power which there is in 
the fact that He was once in this world 
where we are, and walked this same earth 
on which our feet now tread. 

Nothing can ever wipe away the fact, that 
once on a certain day in the world's history 
His blood-drops, from the cross on which He 



The Power of a Fact. 229 

was hanging, fell upon a certain place called 
the place of a skull. 

That is a fact, and there is power in that 
event considered simply in the light that it 
is a fact 

This sermon to-day is about "the power 
of a fact." " And they compel one Simon a 

Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and 

Eufus, to bear his cross." 

The story taken from St. Mark's Gospel is 
as follows. 

When Jesus was led out to be crucified, he 
staggered and fell on the way under the 
heavy weight of his cross. 

In the crowd which was looking on at the 
long procession wending its way to Calvary 
was a strong looking man from Africa, Si- 
mon by name, from the country in Egypt 
called Cyrene. When Jesus sank under his 
load, suffering as He was from the weakness 
of the long night spent in the Garden of 
Gethsemane and before Pilate and Herod and 
the High-priest, the soldiers laid hold upon 
this strong looking man, with his swarthy, 



230 A Father's Blessing. 

dusky face, and compelled him to take up 
the cross of Jesus and carry it to Mt. Calvary. 
This Simon was called Niger, or " Black," 
because of his dark complexion. He is 
mentioned both by St. Matthew and St. Luke, 
and St. Mark gives the account of him which 
we find in this text. " And they compel one 
Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming 
out of the country, the father of Alexander 
and Rufus, to bear his cross." 

This Simon was well known, no doubt, 
after this event in Jerusalem, but his boys, 
Alexander and Rufus, in all probability went 
to Rome to live, for in St. Paul's Epistle to 
the Romans, we find him greeting one Rufus 
as " chosen in the Lord." Now, the Gospel 
by St. Mark was written for the Gentile 
Christians ; and especially to those who lived 
at Rome. The people in Rome would not 
know who this Simon the Cyrenian was, but 
they would know who Alexander and Rufus 
were, for they in all probability lived there. 
So when St. Mark spoke of this Simon the 
Cvrenian who bore the cross of Jesus, he 



The Power of a Fact. 231 

added, for the sake of those persons who lived 
in Rome and knew Simon's sons : •' he was 
the father of Alexander and Rufus." 
' Go back with me then, my dear children, 
to this far-off scene which St. Mark here 
describes. There is in Antwerp a picture by 
Rubens of this scene of Simon carrying the 
cross of Jesus. 

"It represents," says a certain writer de- 
scribing it, " our Lord bearing His cross on 
the way to Calvary, when Simon of Cyrene 
is met coming out of the country with his 
two boys, Alexander and Rufus, and he is 
compelled for a while to bear the cross and 
ease the shoulder of Jesus, galled by its 
great weight. After a while the cross is 
once more given to Christ to carry, and 
we see the two boys looking with awe- 
struck eyes at the pale face of Jesus, with 
the blood trickling down from the thorn- 
crowned temples. There is pity trembling 
in the eyes and on the lips of the lads, 
mingled with curiosity, and little Rufus, 
unable to bear the sight, is bursting into 



232 A Father's Blessing. 

tears and is hiding his face on his brother's 
breast." 

This then is the picture, and this is the 
story, which has given us our sermon to- 
day. 

Those boys, Alexander and Kufus, never 
could forget that scene when Jesus fell 
under his cross, and their father was seized, 
standing as he was by the wayside, and was 
made to carry the Saviour's cross. 

Perhaps there were many children that 
day looking on at the long procession 
through the streets of Jerusalem, wending 
its way to that green hill outside the city 
wall. Some of them no doubt grew up 
and forgot all about Jesus. Some may have 
thought of Him only as one out of many 
prisoners whom they had seen led to execu- 
tion. But Alexander and Rufus never for- 
got that day. They never forgot that for a 
little while their father took the place of Je- 
sus, on that journey to Calvary. 

They became followers of Jesus, and many 
years after this event they were known as 



The Power of a Fact. .233 

Christians at Rome; and to one of them, 
Rnfus, the great apostle St. Paul sent a lov- 
ing message, saying that he was " chosen in 
the Lord." 

This scene and this story then give us our 
subject to-day. Let us now see what lessons 
we learn from this subject of, " The Power of 
a Fact" 

I. 

First. The facts of our childhood are the 
facts which have come to stay. 

The memory is the most wonderful thing 
in all our nature. It is like the double entry 
books which the clerks keep in their desks 
and offices. Everything which we do, every 
transaction of our life, gets recorded in the 
books of our memory. And what is called 
the opening of the books at the day of Judg- 
ment may be, after all, but the opening of the 
long-forgotten books of memory, just as a 
bookkeeper goes to his great ledger-book, 
and opens it to find some recorded sale which 
he knows he will discover in the book, 



234 A Father's Blessing. 

though he cannot remember the event him- 
self. 

And it is the facts of our childhood which 
are written deepest upon the memory. "We 
are young and fresh and tender in our child- 
hood hours, and the things which happen to 
us then make the deepest impression upon 
our memory. When a cake or a loaf of bread 
is put into the oven to bake, you know it is 
soft and tender. You can write your name 
on the dough or can make pictures of ani- 
mals or men upon it. But when it comes 
out of the oven it is hard and baked and dry. 

It will not take any new impressions then. 
The heat has made a crust come over the ten- 
der dough. 

Well ! in very much this same way, life is 
like an oven to us. The heat of life brings 
out a hard crust over us. It is a very diffi- 
cult thing to make any impression on our 
nature after we have got our manhood's crust 
on us. 

I was reading the other day about a bur- 
glar out in St. Louis. He was a young man 



The Power of a Fact. 235 

who had joined a gang of thieves. " One, 
night as he was boring with his augur from 
an old wareroom into a store-room where a 
great many valuables were kept, he heard a 
mother in the room next to him singing to 
her baby in the cradle, Dr. Watts' nursery 
hymn: 

" Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, 
Holy angels guard thy bed, 
Heavenly blessings without number 
Gently fall upon tby head." 

The partition wall was very thin. He 
heard this mother singing the very hymn 
and tune which he remembered his mother 
had sung when he was a little fellow in 
her arms. The hooks were opened. The 
record book of memory was the record book 
of judgment. He excused himself from the 
rest of his companions and ran down the 
rickety stairs of the old ware-room until he 
reached the front door, when he threw down 
his valise with his "jimmy" and other bur- 
glar's tools and ran off — never to be a rob- 
ber anv more. 



236 A Father's Blessing. 

That hymn had power in it ; it was the 
power which there is in a fact. That fact 
of his early childhood was a fact which he 
had thought was forgotten, but it was after 
all a fact that had come to stay. 

In the same way, the fact which Alexan- 
der and Rufus saw, when their father, 
Simon, carried the cross of Jesus, was a fact 
which remained with them throughout their 
whole lives. They never could forget it. 
It was one of the facts of their childhood 
which had come to remain with them 
through life. 

And we all have such facts about us con- 
tinually. There is power in the facts of our 
life. There is the greatest of all power in 
the facts of our life as children, for these 
facts are the facts which have come to stay 
with us. 

II. 

The facts of our childhood are the seeds of our 
after life. 

A seed is a wonderful thing. It is the 



The Power of a Fact. 237 

model of the plant or tree or flower which 
comes up out of it from the ground. Whenev- 
er we paint or draw or work or write we want 
a model. There was a poor weaver who came 
to me a year ago, to tell me that he had in- 
vented a new loom with a new kind of 
" shut off" motion. He felt sure that if he 
could only get a patent on it he would be 
able to make a great deal of money. 

So Mathew the weaver and I talked it all 
over, and drew up papers and plans, and 
sent to Washington to the Patent office there 
for a " Patent." But we found that before 
we could get a " Patent," we would have to 
send on a model to go into the office there. 

At last Mathew the weaver came one 
night to the house with his model. It was 
in wood, and was covered over with gold dust 
so as to look very beautiful. This model 
was an exact miniature of the patent loom. 
It was the germ seed of which the loom was 
the flower. 

Now, my dear children, what we are in 
childhood, we are in after life. 



238 A Father's Blessing. 

The poet Wordsworth says, " The child is 
the father of the man." 

You know we always think that a man is 
the father of his child. But in reality the 
child is the father of the man, for what we 
are in our childhood we shall be when we 
grow up to be men and women. And so it 
happens that the facts of our childhood are 
the seeds of our after life. If you open a 
seed, such as a kernel of corn, or a grain of 
wheat, or an acorn, you will find in the heart 
of the seed the model of the plant. A tiny 
ear of corn will be seen in the grain of corn, 
a tiny ear of wheat will be seen in the piece 
of wheat, a tiny oak tree will be seen in the 
very heart of the acorn. These seeds are 
the beginnings of all things to the plants. 
They are the bottom facts of their existence. 
And the facts of our childhood are the seeds 
of our after life. What kind of facts are 
happening to you, my dear children? The 
things which are happening to you now 
are the seeds which are being sown for the 
davs which are to come afterwards ! 



The Power of a Fact. 239 

III. 

Good deeds done, are never thrown away. 
That was a good deed which Simon the 
Cyrenian did for the suffering Saviour. We 
do not know with what motive he carried 
the cross of Christ. Perhaps he may have 
felt for Him in His sufferings. Perhaps he 
may have shown his sympathy for Jesus by 
some kind look in his eye. However this 
may be, he stooped down and took the 
heavy beam of wood upon his own should- 
ers and Jesus was relieved of His burden. 

Alexander and Eufus saw all this. They 
saw their father do this act of kindness for 
the thorn-crowned prophet. They saw him 
stoop under the weight of the cross. Per- 
haps they heard him pant for breath. They 
heard the noise which the end of the cross 
made as it scraped the ground along which 
it was dragged. They saw the long line which 
the heavy beam made along the turf and 
sand until they came to Calvary. They saw 
their father at the hill of Crucifixion ex- 
change places with Jesus again. Perhaps 



240 A Father's Blessing. 

they held on to their father's hands, glad to 
have him once more with them, while the 
soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross. All this 
they never, never forgot. 

We do not know what kind of a Christian 
Alexander was. St. Paul says of Rufus that 
u he was chosen in the Lord." 

I rather think they must both have been 
good men, or St. Paul would not have sent 
a message to them, or have remembered 
them in his letter to the Christians at Rome. 

At any rate, this we know, the good deeds 
which we do for others, the kind actions, the 
loving words, the gentle tones, the unselfish 
things which we do for those about us, 
never can be forgotten. We think that 
they are dead and forgotten. But they live 
over and over again in the lives and memo- 
ries of those whom we have helped. 

I have no doubt that Alexander and Rufus, 
if they were good and kind to the poor 
saints who were in Rome, were good and 
kind, first of all, because they remembered 
how, when they were boys looking on at the 



The Power of a Fact. 241 

procession to Mount Calvary, they had seen 
their father, Simon the Cyrenian, carrying 
the cross of their Lord Jesus Christ. 

These then are the lessons which this 
subject teaches us. 

I. 

The facts of our childhood are the facts 
which have come to stay. 

II. 

The facts of our childhood are the seeds 
of our after life. 

III. 

Good deeds done are never thrown away. 

Alexander and Kufus, looking on at their 
father carrying the cross of Jesus, never for- 
got that scene. It lived over and over 
again in their after lives. The power which 
it exerted in their days of manhood was, 
the power which there always is in a Fact. 
16 



XVII. 
SATAN'S FISHING TACKLE. 

"They take up all of them with the angle, they 
catch them in their net, and gather them in their 
drag." — Habakkuk i. 15. 

jTfr^HE Jewish people had very little to do 
>s^K with two things of which the Ameri- 
can people are very fond, — fast horses and 
fast ships. Going down into the sea in ships, 
or going down- into Egypt with horses, al- 
ways seemed to the Jews to be the height 
of uncertainty and risk, and thus it came to 
pass that ships and horses always stood as 
the highest symbols possible of folly. 

But the prophet Habakkuk, who lived 
about six hundred years before Christ, had 
perhaps seen some of his fellow-countrymen 
fishing for deep sea fish in the Mediterranean, 
or on the lake of Galilee, in the North Coun- 

(243) 



244 A Father's Blessing. 

try, and had made a note of the three ways 
of catching fish. He saw the fishermen 
about him catching fish in these three ways, 
first, by angling for them; secondly, by 
catching them in a net; and thirdly, by 
driving them together by means of a drag. 

And then, when he looked about him, and 
saw his fellow-countrymen rushing into sin, 
and being caught by temptation and dragged 
into evil, he said they were as " the fishes of 
the sea, as the creeping things that have no 
ruler over them. They take up all of them 
with the angle, they catch them in their net, 
they gather them in their drag." 

Fishing and fishing tackle form a great 
department of life. There is a great deal of 
water on this globe of ours, and where there 
is a great deal of water there will be a great 
many fish, and where there are a great many 
fish there will be a great many fishermen. 

But after all there are only three ways of 
catching fish : by angling for them, by get- 
ting them into the net, and by dragging for 
them. Sometimes the Indians spear fish as 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 245 

they go over the waterfalls. This is the way 
the Penobscot Indians used to fish along the 
rivers in Maine, but this "was only for a cer- 
tain kind of fish, the salmon, and was only 
practised by a few Indian tribes, 

Our subject to-day is, " Satan's Fishing 
Tackle." One of the old Church Fathers said 
that " Satan is the ape of God.*' He meant 
by this that Satan imitated whatever God 
did. You know how many counterfeit things 
there are in the world, On all sorts of pack- 
ages to-day, such as soap, perfumery, cologne, 
and medicines, you will find the words, " Ke- 
ware of imitations," "None genuine without 
our signature.''" 

God strives to do a certain thing, and then 
this evil principle in the world which we call 
Satan imitates this act. 

God strives to win men, and Satan strives 
to do the same. God strives to save men, and 
Satan strives to destroy them. God uses all 
sorts of means to catch men ; Satan uses all 
sorts of instruments to do the same. 

This world in which we live is good or 



246 A Father's Blessing. 

bad, according as we use it. We can put a 
hook in the things about us and can catch 
them for God's service, or we can put a hook 
in them and catch them for the service of 
sin. 

Art, music, pleasure, books, society, fame, 
glory, power, wealth, pictures, and every- 
thing which makes this world lovely is only 
bad when Satan puts his hook through them 
as bait, and lands us in his own boat with 
his own fishing tackle. 

The one way to catch fish is to have plenty 
of bait. There are a great many things 
in this world which are good enough in 
themselves, only, if we look sharp we shall 
surely see Satan's hook under them. These 
attractions and pleasures of life are the 
things which he uses for bait. You children 
who fish and are fond of fishing, know just 
how this is. Some fish will bite at one kind 
of bait and some at another. There are 
times when trout fish will bite at worms. 
There are other times when they will bite 
only at flies. 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 247 

Crabs bite at a piece of red flannel It is 
the red color which attracts their eye. Blue- 
fish bite at a metal squid. It is the shining, 
bright, silvery steel gliding through the 
water which makes them snap at it. "They 
take up all of them with the angle." 

And men and women are very much like 
the fishes of the sea. They get caught by 
the baits of Satan in very much the same 
way that fish are caught by the hook con- 
cealed beneath the bait. All the temptations 
which we find around us in our every-day 
life are Satan's baits. "We see the bait . and 
not the hook. But if we yield to sin, the 
bait is gone in a moment, and the cruel hook 
is felt. 

There are three ways in which we are 
caught by Satan's fishing tackle : 

I. 

First of all, there is the way in which we 
are caught by the angle. Some fish, such as 
salmon and trout, bite at the bait. They 
rise out of the water to snap at the hook 



248 A Father's Blessing. 

concealed beneath the fly or the worm. 
Other fish, like the heavy flounder, merely 
suck in the hook lazily, and happen, as it 
were, to get caught. 

And there are certain people in the world 
who seem to bite at sin for the love which 
they have for sin. It is one thing to sin be- 
cause we are tempted, or because we are in the 
company of others who are sinning. It is 
quite another thing to sin because we want 
to sin, — to bite at the bare hook of sin itself. 

I was talking the other day with a very 
good person, when all of a sudden this very 
good person said, " I don't know why I 
should feel as I do, but I do want to do 
something wicked," — "Do something wick- 
ed ?" I asked. " Why do you want to do 
something wicked?" — "I don't know," re- 
plied this very good person, "unless it is 
Satan trying to make me bite at his bare 
hook." 

Well, my dear children, Satan does make 
us at times not only do wrong, but want to 
do tvrong. That is the hard part of it. 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 249 

And that is why we must have the grace of 
our Lord Jesus Christ to keep us from the 
evil forces around us. The Apostle calls this 
evil tendency within us " Satan's devices." 
He has his arts, and snares, and tricks. He 
takes us up with his temptations, and we 
take up with his angle." 

" When I see the fisher bait his hook," 
says an old writer, " I think of Satan's sub- 
tle malice, who sugars over his poisoned 
hooks with seeming pleasure. Thus Eve's 
apple was candied with divine knowledge. 
4 Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and 
evil.' When I see the fish fast hanged, I 
think upon the covetous worldling who leaps 
at the profit without considering the danger. 
Thus Achan takes the gold and the gar- 
ment, and never considers that his life must 
answer for it. If Satan be such a fisher of 
men, it is good to look before we leap." 

The first way in which, we are caught by 
Satan's fishing tackle is the way in which 
we bite at sin, the way in which " we take 
up with the angle." 



250 A Father's Blessing. 

II. 

Secondly, there is the way in which we 
are caught by the net. 

When a fish is caught in a net, he is 
caught because he is in company. A fish 
will bite at a hook alone, but a fish will 
never go into a net alone. Fish go in shoals 
or schools, birds go in a flock, cattle go in a 
herd. When animals go together they 
always head the same way. Birds don't fly 
north, south, east and west. They always fly 
in the same direction. Cows in "a pasture 
field do not graze in opposite ways. They 
always head together — up a field or down a 
field. 

And we, my dear children, act in very 
much the same way as the beasts of the 
field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the 
sea. When we go wrong and get astray, 
we go wrong because we are in wrong com- 
pany. The poor fish when they are caught 
in the net are all caught together. They 
flap and flounder around, but it is all in vain. 
The net gathers tightly about them, and 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 251 

soon they are breathing out their dying 
gasps in the bottom of the fisherman's boat. 
"They gather them in their net." 

It is a good thing for us every little while 
to see how we are heading and who our 
companions are, for we very often are tempt- 
ed to wrong-doing simply by the wrong-do- 
ing of our friends and companions. 

Boys and girls ! look well to your com- 
panions. See to it that they are not leading 
you into some net. 

III. 

Thirdly, there is the way in which we are 
caught by the drag. 

A drag is a sort of a net with hooks and 
weights, which is drawn along the bottom 
of a lake or river, and which gathers the 
fish into it before they know it. The drag 
sweeps the bed of the stream, and collects 
everything which it can find, good or bad. 
If a fish who was caught by a drag could 
talk, and we were to say to him, " Will you 
be good enough, Mr. Fish, to tell us how 



252 A Father's Blessing. 

you came to be caught in that way ?" he 
would say, in reply, "My dear friends, I was 
dragged into it" " They gather them in their 
drag." 

And in this same way we get dragged into 
sin before we know it. We are taken by 
surprise very often, and feel ourselves weak 
in the presence of some tempter, or some one 
with a commanding will, who is influencing 
us, and we get into sin and wrong-doing 
before we know it. Some stronger nature 
than ours influences us, and we in our 
weakness give way. Look at Simon Peter 
in Pilate's judgment hall. He really did not 
mean to deny his Lord. He did not plan out 
his denial; as Judas did. He was taken by 
surprise. He was dragged into his sin before 
he knew it. He was caught, not by Satan's 
hook or by Satan's net; he was caught by 
Satan's drag. The servant girl laughed at 
him, and her companions jeered at him for 
being a friend of Jesus, and Simon Peter 
yielded to his surroundings, and was dragged 
by them into his denial of his Master. 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 253 

Look out for the drag, children ! Look 
out for this way of being carried off your 
feet into sin before you know it. 

Don't take up with the angle. Don't take 
up with the net. Don't take up with the 



These, then, are the lessons of our sermon 
to-day about Satan's fishing tackle: 

First. There is the way in which we are 
caught by the angle, or the way we have of 
biting at sin. 

Secondly. There is the way in which 
we are caught by the net, or the way we 
have of going in the company of other sin- 
ners. 

Thirdly, There is the way in which we 
are caught by the drag, or the way we have 
of being dragged into sin. 

I was reading the other day about a true 
answer which one sinner made to another. 
A drunken student, trying to excuse his in- 
toxication, said, " I don't know how it is that 
I am here in this condition, but now that I 
am in for it, I mean to go the whole figure. 



254 A Father's Blessing. 

One might as well be killed for a sheep as 
for a lamb. I had no idea of getting into 
such a spree. I cannot tell what brought it 
about. I suppose Satan tempted me" — " Poh ! " 
said another, "he didn't do any such thing. 
Do you want to know how it happened with 
me ? I went up to my room and read 
awhile, and then grew restless and want- 
ed some exciting pleasures, and, after wait- 
ing for Satan to come to me, I came out in search 
of him, and here I am" The devil is easily 
found by those who seek him, and it is a 
mean, cowardly piece of business to lay the 
blame where it does not belong, and say that 
he tempts us when we run to put ourselves 
in the way of temptation. 

Children, be careful how you get into that 
current of life in which you know that Sa- 
tan is fishing, for he has all sorts of fishing 
tackle, and will get you by hook or by crook 
if he can. 

Beware of Satan's hook, covered by the 
tempting bait; beware of Satan's net, which 
those who enter do not see; beware of Satan's 



Satan's Fishing Tackle. 255 

drag, which will sooner or later, haul in all 
who are enclosed by it. 

The angle ; the net ; and the drag ; these 
are around us at every turn in life. 

Dear children, don't let go the help which 
comes to you from our Lord Jesus Christ, 
for without that help we are in continual 
danger of falling into the hand of Satan — 
the Evil Fisherman. 



XYHL 

THE MAN WHO SAVED AND 
THE MAN WHO TAXED. 

"It came to pass in those days, that there went out 
a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should 
be taxed,"— St. Luke ii. 1, 

2H N the beautiful gallery of the Pittsfield 
^j Athenaeum, there is the bust of Caesar 
Augustus, the Roman Emperor, when he 
was a boy, and the statue of the same Em- 
peror when he was a man. I have often watch- 
ed these two faces, in their white stucco ma- 
terial, and have noticed how the uncertain 
lines in the face of the boy have become hard- 
ened out in th@ face of the man. The beau- 
tiful face of the boy Augustus, that hap- 
py, favored nephew of the great Julius Cae- 
sar, becomes in the man the hard, cruel and 

selfish face of the Roman Emperor. The 
17 (257) 



258 A Father's Blessing. 

history of the Emperor Augustus is as fol- 
lows : 

When his great uncle, Julius Caesar, was at 
the height of his power, he adopted this youth, 
whose name was Octavius or Octavianus, and 
made him his heir. When Julius Caesar 
was assassinated in the Senate, a triumvirate 
of Roman Generals was formed, consisting of 
Lepidus, Antony and Octavius. After vari- 
ous fortunes, in which Antony linked his 
career with that of Cleopatra, Queen of 
Egypt, a great battle was fought at Actium, 
in the year b. c. 31, which left Octavius, who 
was always a child of fortune, sole ruler of 
Kome, and consequently of the world. Then 
the Roman Senate voted that he should be- 
come Emperor of Rome, and that divine 
honors should be paid to him. Thereupon he 
took the name of " Augustus " — from the 
auguries or august honors which were paid 
to him — and in this way what was called the 
golden or Augustan Age began. 

The " Augustan Age ' in France was when 
Louis XIV. was king, and the period of 



The Man who Taxed. 259 

Queen Anne was called the "Augustan Age" 
in England. 

The Emperor Augustus was a friend to 
learning, and a great patron of the arts. 
The celebrated poets Virgil, Horace and 
Ovid, and the historian, Livy, flourished 
during this " Augustan Age." 

The Latin poet, Horace, wrote many odes 
at this period about the Great Augustus and 
his friend Macenas. When you boys come 
to study Latin for college you will have to 
translate these odes of the poet Horace. 

In the 12th ode of the first book of Horace 
we find the Emperor Augustus described in 
these words: 

" thou son of Saturn, author and pre- 
server of the human race, the protection of 
Caesar is committed to thy charge by Fates : 
Thou shall reign supreme, with Caesar for 
thy second; he shall rule the wide world 
with equity in subordination to thee." 

Indeed many of the odes of this period, 
from the poets Virgil and Horace, speak of 
the great Augustus in the way in which King 



260 A Father's Blessing. 

David and his son Solomon are described in 
the Psalms, and in the way in which the 
Messiah of the Jews is mentioned by the 
prophet Isaiah. 

Some of these odes sound very much like 
the words of that hymn which we sing at 
Christmas time: — 

11 Hail to the Lord's anointed, 

Great David's greater Son : 
Hail in the time appointed, 

His reign on earth begun I 
He comes to break oppression, 

To set the captive free — 
To take away transgression, 

And rule in equity/' 

When Augustus was sixty-six years old, 
or ten years before his death, in the year 4, 
b. c. (four years before the date commonly 
called the Christian Era), he issued a decree 
that all the world should be taxed. 

In the same year, in a stable belonging 
to an inn at the little town of Bethlehem, 
Jesus Christ was born ! 

We all know the story of His birth. We 



The Man who Taxed. 261 

always read it with joy and pleasure in the 
Services of Christmas time. Little did the 
great Augustus, in his palace at Rome, know 
of that event which took place in the far- 
off country of Judea, when he issued his 
decree — that all the world should be taxed. 
Herod, the King, at his court in Jerusalem ; 
nobles in their chariots riding through the 
crowded streets of the city; soldiers hust- 
ling their way through the castle ; priests and 
doctors around the steps of the temple, all 
were occupied with their different occupa 
tions, and little thought of the great event 
which happened in Bethlehem when Joseph 
and Mary were enrolled in their native town, 
and the child Jesus was born in the stable. 

I want to speak to you to-day about the 
two great laws of our life, or what we learn 
from the man who taxed, and what we learn 
from the man who saved. 



The first law of life is the law of life for self 
Caesar Augustus taxed people. He had them 



262 A Father's Blessing 

all enrolled in the towns where they belong- 
ed, and then everybody in the great Empire 
of Home, which was all the world, was tax- 
ed. These taxes brought in a vast amount 
of money and material wealth, which went, 
as it was supposed, to support the govern- 
ment, but inasmuch as all the Caesars grew 
very wealthy in office, these taxes in reality 
went into the coffers of those in power. 

And this same decree very frequently goes 
forth from certain people to-day, that all 
their friends shall be taxed. All people who 
habitually think more of themselves than 
they do of others, tax their friends. If we 
think of our friends only in the way of what 
we can get out of them, that is not friend- 
ship, it is only the tax of Caesar Augustus 
upon all the world. It is tyranny — not 
friendship. 

Two children were playing not long ago, 
in a family sitting-room, when one of them 
said suddenly: "Jack, I wonder why Uncle 
Tom doesn't come to see us any more ? He 
used to come a great deal, and I always 



The Man who Taxed. 263 

loved to have him come ; he used to tell us 
such funny stories. Do you know why he 
doesn't come here any more ?* 

" Yes," replied Jack; " I know the reason, 
it's because he's poor now." 

"Poor?" asked Jack's brother Don, 
" poor ? Why, what has that got to do 
with his coming here ?" 

"I don't know," replied Jack ; "but I 
heard Aunt Maria say the other day that 
there was no use in asking Uncle Tom to 
come here any more, for they are very poor 
now and there was nothing to be gotten out of 
them any more" 

"There went forth a decree that all the 
world should be taxed." Yes, there is a 
great deal of this domestic home-made tax- 
ing going on in our homes to-day. Boys 
and girls tax their visitors and their rela- 
tives and their friends. They tax their 
parents and get into the way of thinking 
that everybody exists on purpose to furnish 
a revenue for them. Cakes, candies, pres- 
ents, spending money, all these are the 



26i A Father's Blessing. 

taxes which boys and girls put upon their 
friends, when, like Caesar Augustus, they 
obey the law of life for self and send forth a 
decree that all the world shall be taxed. 

Now, my dear children, that is what I 
mean by the Caesar Augustus kind of life. 
All the world is looked upon as a source of 
revenue or income for one's own self, and 
the law of life for self only, keeps sending 
forth this decree continually that all the 
world shall be taxed. 

II. 

The other law of life is the law of life for 
others. 

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem there 
went forth a message of love that all the 
world should be saved. The angels sang in 
the heavens — " Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, good will toward men." 
The one law of the life of Jesus was the law 
of life for others. He bore the Cross not 
for himself, but for us. His whole life was 
spent in saving others, and helping others, 



The Man who Saved. 265 

and doing good to all who were around Him. 
He prayed upon the Cross for His murderers 
— " Father, forgive them," he said, "for they 
know not what they do ! " 

People to-day have forgotten all about 
Csesar Augustus — the man who taxed the 
world for himself. But to-day the Lord 
Jesus Christ is loved and honored and 
served by millions of people who have been 
drawn to Him by the law of His life, that 
conquering law of all life, the law of life for 
others. Jesus said, " I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me." And He has drawn 
the world to Him, and saved the world by 
the way in which He has lived and died in 
order to bless the world instead of living only 
to tax the world. And if we are the follow- 
ers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ought to 
have His spirit. St. Paul says in one place, 
" If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he 
is none of his." We want that spirit which 
saves and pleases; not that spirit which tax- 
es and gives pain. 

One of the legends of Scottish history tells 



266 A Father's Blessing. 

us, that while the great Ear] of Douglas was 
living, lie was the terror of all his enemies, 
and that his name carried fear and conster- 
nation wherever it went. Sir Walter Scott 
says that mothers used to sing to their chil- 
dren this lullaby: 

ei Hush ye — hush ye — 
Little pet ye — 
Lie you still 
And don't you fret ye — 
The Black Douglas — 
Shall not get ye." 

On his crest were written the words: 
11 Thou shalt want ere I want." After his 
death his heart was taken out and preserved 
in a strong urn, and his followers used to 
carry it with them to battle. When they 
failed to carry the day, or when the battle 
was going against them, the man who car- 
ried the precious urn would hurl it into the 
enemy's ranks, crying out, "Remember the 
Black Douglas, his heart has gone before 
you." 

Well! my dear children, in very much 



The Man who Saved. 267 

this same way, if we want to keep very close 
to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must 
follow His heart of love wherever we can find 
that heart loving and blessing the world. 
Let us save others instead of taxing them. 
Remember what power there is in a cheering 
word; in an act of kindness and love, in 
making the world better and brighter for 
our being in it, instead of making the world 
sad and sorrowful by the way we add to the 
taxes of life. Eemember that the one only 
way to be loved is to love : the one only way 
to be blessed, is to bless, and remember this 
also, that whether we know it or not, and 
whether we realize it or not, it is a truth 
that whatsoever we sow that shall we reap. 
If we sow taxes, we shall reap taxes : if we 
sow blessings, we shall reap blessings. 

These then are the two lessons of this sub- 
ject. There are, after all, only two laws or 
principles by which we act in life. The first 
is the law of life for self. The second is the 
law of life for others. 

Cgesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, 



268 A Father's Blessing. 

thought only of himself. So he sent forth a 
decree that all the world should be taxed. 

The Lord Jesus Christ, the son of a Gali- 
lean carpenter, thought only of others, so 
he sent forth a decree that all the world 
might be saved. Who cares for Caesar Au- 
gustus now ? 

He is forgotten, while the little babe of 
Bethlehem, who was enrolled in Judea at 
the time of the taxing by Augustus, lives on in 
the hearts and lives of countless Christian 
followers. 

Depend upon it, my dear children, it is 
better to do good than merely to get good. 
It is better to think of the good of others 
rather than the good of one's self. It is bet- 
ter to save people than it is to tax people. 



XIX. 
SCHOOL-BOY SAINTS. 

"All the Saints salute you." — 2 Corinthians xiii. 13. 

^rJl^HIS sermon is about " School-boy 
3$* Saints." I will tell you what I mean 
by this. 

When an army is drawn up on dress parade 
to salute its commanding officer, the gene- 
ral, or commander, stands upon some prom- 
inent place, and the entire army files past 
it and -salutes the commander as he stands 
with his staff around him. All the soldiers 
salute their officers by " presenting arms," 
or touching their caps, and in this way, as 
an army division passes its staff officers, all 
the troops salute them. 

In very much this same way St. Paul 
says to the Corinthian Christians, " All the 

Saints salute you," that is all the Saints 

(269) 



270 A Father's Blessing. 

which are at Philippi salute you. St. Paul 
wrote this epistle from the city of Philippi, 
and in writing he sent his love and the love 
of all his fellow Philippian Christians, to 
the Christians of Corinth. It is as if all the 
different members of the Christian Church 
had passed by in a long review before the 
Church which was at Corinth, and had salut- 
ed it. Gray- haired old men and women ; fa- 
thers and mothers, with their boys and girls, 
and with little infants in their arms, all passed 
by in a long procession, and saluted their 
brethren of the Church at Corinth. Some- 
where in this long line there must have been 
children, for there were doubtless those who 
were baptized, when young, into the Chris- 
tian Church. So then if there were young 
people there were undoubtedly boys and 
girls who were trying to be Christians, and 
these young Saints of Philippi saluted those 
of Corinth, when St. Paul wrote these 
words : 

"All the Saints salute you." 



School-boy Saints. 271 

Now, when I say " School-boy Saints," I 
mean, of course, boys and girls, all young 
people who are trying to be followers of the 
Lor J Jesus Christ. 

Let me tell you the story of the patron Saint 
of all school boys, and then find out the les- 
sons which this subject teaches us. St. Nich- 
olas, whom we always remember as the St. 
Nicholas or Santa Claus of Christmas time, 
was born in Patara, in Asia Minor, on the 
6th of December, a. d. 343. He is known in 
Church history as the patron Saint of all 
school-boys. At last, in some way, when 
the story of St. Nicholas came into Germany, 
it became changed into the story or legend 
of Santa Claus, the jolly old Dutch Saint, 
who used to come down the chimney with 
all sorts of good gifts for the children. St. 
Nicholas was made Bishop of Myra when he 
was a .boy, and after his life the practice 
became established, every now and then, of 
choosing boy Bishops. 

When Nicholas was a young man at 
Patara, he became very fond of having boys 



272 A Father's Blessing. 

come to his house to study with him. He 
seems to have had a great influence over 
boys, and to have been very popular with 
them. It was in this way that he became 
in after years the patron Saint of school- 
boys. 

Well; there is an old story that upon one 
occasion a very rich merchant sent his sous 
to be educated by St. Nicholas, at Patara. 
The boys stopped over night at an inn in the 
place. The keeper of this inn and his wife, 
finding that they were alone, and that they 
had money with them, planned to murder 
them at night. So at midnight, just before 
the time of cock-crowing, this wicked man 
and his wife entered their room and cut their 
throats with a carving knife. 

For a long time it was supposed that the 
boys had been murdered by robbers in the 
night, but St. Nicholas boldly accused the 
inn-keeper and his wife, and the story is 
that they confessed their wickedness and 
suffered death. Another story is that St. 
Nicholas found the dead bodies of the two 



School-boy Saints. 273 

boys thrown into a ditch, with their necks 
all " scraggened," whatever that may mean, 
and that he touched their bleeding throats 
with holy oil, and prayed over them, and 
thus brought them back again to life. But 
of course this is all legend, and it is in this 
way that history becomes mixed with fable 
and loses its true character. 

We find, however, that the custom of 
electing boys as Bishops, after the manner 
of St. Nicholas, extended until the year, a. d. 
1550, when as King Edward I., the Plantaga- 
net, was on his way to Scotland to fight the 
Scotch, he permitted one of the boy Bishops 
to say vespers before him in Durham Cathe- 
dral. At Salisbury Cathedral these boy 
Bishops had the power of making appoint- 
ments and giving gifts, if any vacancies 
occurred during their reign. 

But this custom of electing boy Bishops 
was stopped by the following Eoyal pro- 
clamation, which was published on July 22, 
1542: 

18 



274 A Father's Blessing. 

" And, whereas, heretofore, dyvers and 
many strange superstitions have been used 
in many parts of this Kealme, as upon St. 
Nicholas, Holy Innocents, and the like, 
children be strangely decked and appar- 
ralled to counterfeit Priests and Bishops, the 
King's Majesty willeth that henceforth all 
such superstitions be left and clearly extin- 
guished throughout the Eealme and Domin- 



On December 5, 1554, there went forth 
another royal decree, that St. Nicholas, the 
patron Saint of boys, should not go about" 

This refers to the beginning of that cus- 
tom which became changed in Germany into 
the legend of Santa Claus coming on Christ- 
mas Eve with good gifts to children. 

The old legend of St. Nicholas, which has 
become changed in our time into the fabJe 
of Santa Claus, is that St. Nicholas used to 
throw in their windows purses to poor girls 
the night before they were married, to be 
their marriage portions. 



School-boy Saints. 275 

You all remember the Christmas song — 

"'Twas the night before Christinas, when all through 
the house 
Not a creature was stirring — not even a mouse, 
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there*." 

Well, this St. Nicholas of Christmas story 
is our old friend St. Nicholas of Asia, the 
patron Saint of school-boys. 

The custom of filling children's stockings 
began in Italy and France, in the Middle 
Ages, in the convents ; the poor nuns there 
believed that the good things which they 
received on Christmas Eve were the gifts of 
St. Nicholas. 

An old legend of this period, in condemn- 
ing this custom, uses the following words : — 

tl St. Nicholas money used to give to maidens secretly, 
Who that he still may use his wonted liberality, 
The mothers all their children on this eve do cause 

to fast, 
And when they every one at night in senseless sleep 
do cast, 



276 A Father's Blessing. 

Both, apples, nuttes and peares they bring and other 

things beside, 
As caps and shoes, and little coats, which secretly 

they hide, 
And in the morning found they say that this St. 

Nicholas brought, 
Thus tender minds to worship Saints and wicked 

things are taught." 

So much then for the boy Bishop — St. 
Nicholas — the patron Saint of school-boys. 

Now what lesson do we learn from this 
old legend of the " School-boy's Saint ? " 



First. We learn that Saints can be made 
even out of school-boys. I say even out of 
scliool-boys. Think for a moment what an 
average school-boy is. He hates to go to 
school, and thinks it is very hard that he 
must go. He dislikes his teachers, and 
thinks that it is their one end and aim in 
life to give him long lessons. Acorns, nails, 
string, sling-shots, spools, stones, cast-off bits 
of iron, slate-pencils, and chewing-gum are 
in his pockets. He goes along dreamily to 



School-boy Saints. 277 

school, with thoughts of buccaneers and 
pirates in his brain, and with a strap full of 
books over his shoulder. He is the last kind 
of being one would ever think of converting 
into a Saint ; yet all things are possible with 
God, and Saints have been known to be 
made even oat of such school-boys. 

" How do you know Tom is a Christian ?" 
asked his brother Will of another boy they 
had been playing with. 

" Oh, because," replied "Will. 

" Because," said his brother. " That's no 
reason. Give me a regular lawyer's rea- 
son." 

"Well!" said Jack, Will's brother, "I 
stubbed his toes to-day in school, and I 
poured cold water down his back, and I 
walked him Spanish, and he never used a 
swear word once. Yes ! I tell you Tom's a 
regular Saint — no mistake." 

And it is of such changed lives as these 
St. Paul says: "All the Saints salute you." 



278 A Father's Blessing. 

II. 

Secondly. We learn from this subject 
that school-boy Saints are splendid fellows. 

School-boys have generally got very little 
money in their pockets, but they have a 
great deal of fine feeling in their hearts. 

It is surprising how rapidly the money 
of boys disappears. A silver dollar gets 
very quickly broken into two halves ; the 
two halves in the twinkling of an eye 
become two quarters, and the two quarters, 
before we know it, get very soon changed 
into nickels and dimes. 

A boy cannot keep his money. He wants 
all sorts of things — in fact a long row of 
them, and he does not know which he wants 
most. He wants a Flobert rifle, and a veloe- 
ipide, a sling, a dog, pigeons, rabbits, ska-tes, 
a tool chest, tops, kites, and all sorts of 
things. He is always wanting some of 
these implements, and the consequence is he 
is always poor, and the missionary box suf- 
fers on Sunday morning on account of his 
weakened state of finances. 



School-boy Saints. 279 

But after all it is a great deal better to have 
the dollar heart and the dime purse than it 
is to have the dime heart and the dollar 
purse. This was the way the man felt who 
told this story of himself. 

" Once upon a time," he said, "I had a 
dollar in my heart and a dime in my purse. 
Then I wanted to have a dollar in my purse 
all the time. So after a while I grew rich 
and had a dollar iu my purse every hour in 
the day, but at the same time I grew mean 
in my soul. In other words the dollar and 
the dime changed places. The dime went 
into my heart at the very time that the dollar 
went into my purse" 

Now, my dear children, it's a great thing 
in life to have and to keep this generous dollar 
kind of heart. If our heart is all right, ev- 
erything is all right with us. King Solomon 
says, " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for 
out of it are the issues of life." 

And when school-boys have got their 
hearts set right, and are trying to be strong 
and manly Christians, I tell you they are 



280 A Father's Blessing. 

splendid fellows, and are just the kind St. 
Paul had in his mind when he said : 

" All the Saints salute you." 

III. 

Lastly we learn that we can all be school- 
boy kind of Saints if we try. 

The difference between a Saint and a sin- 
ner is this, the Saint tries to give all he can, 
and a sinner tries to get all he can. If we 
keep thinking all the time of everything 
which we do in life and what we can get 
from it, we will soon become dwarfed and 
one-sided characters. But if we keep think- 
ing, " What can I give to other people," we 
will find that we will grow in character in 
exact proportion to the way in which we do 
for others. 

There was once a converted German who 
used to go about getting collections for his 
mission. He used to divide all the people 
he met into the two classes, of the " godly " 
people and the " ungodly ones." 



School-boy Saints. 281 

" Has Mr. Jones given you anything ?" a 
friend once asked. 

"No," replied the German, "Mr. Jones is 
not a godly man, he gave me nothing." 

"Has Mr. Brown given you anything?" 
asked his friend again. 

"0 yes," he replied, "Mr. Brown is a very 
godly man, he gave me ten dollars." 

My dear children, let us all try to be 
school-boy Saints — Saints with dollar hearts 
and dollar pockets. Don't let the fact that 
we are trying to be Saints ever make us mean, 
or cramped, or narrow-hearted. God wants 
all His Saints to be large-minded, generous- 
hearted, and full of courage, zeal, and faith. 

Kemember then these three lessons which 
we learn from the story of St. Nicholas, the 
patron Saint of school-boys. 

First. — God can make Saints even out of 
school-boys. 

Second. — School-boy Saints are splendid 
fellows. 

Third. — We can all be School-boy Saints if 
we try. 



282 A Father's Blessing. 

Let us try to follow the blessed Saints in 
all virtuous and godly living. Let us try to 
do good to others, and throw bright and 
cheery things into their life, as St. Nicholas 
did, and has been remembered as the kind- 
hearted friend of little children because of 
his kind deeds in this way. 

Let us salute all God's Saints! Let us 
take off our hats to them. Let us present 
arms to them for all that they have done in 
the world, and in this way we 'will find our- 
selves among the ranks of those to whom 
St. Paul wrote the words of our text, 

4 'All the Saints salute you. 1 ' 



XX. 
WELLS AND WATER-PIPES. 

" Spring up ? O well : Sing ye unto it." 
Numbees xxi. 17. 

FAE off on the meadows at Narragan- 
sett Pier, back by the Point Judith 
marshes, there used to be a round dell in the 
rocks, with a bubbling spring in it. 

Very few people who go to that seaside 
place for the summer ever knew about this 
spring. It used to keep bubbling up amid 
the tall grass, and only the cows and two or 
three sojourners there could tell just where 
to find it. Many a time as I have tramped 
along over the meadows T have turned aside 
to get a cup of water from that well among 
the rocks. Last summer, when I went to 
the shore, T went to find my dear old well — 
and lo ! it was gone. A house had been 

(283) 



284 A Father's Blessing. 

built on the field and the well had disap- 
peared. A pipe had taken the place of the 
well, and the spring was filling a cistern in 
the house. My dear old well was gone. 
But it has given me my subject to-day. 
This sermon is about the difference there 
is between. 

"WELLS AND WATER-PIPES." 

Let us study out this subject, and learn the 
lessons which it teaches us. 

The words which I have taken for our 
text to-day describe the children of Israel 
when they w T ere journeying through the hot 
plains of the Desert. 

They had left the hill country of the Mo- 
abites and the land of the water-brooks, and 
were now threading their way through the 
dry sands of the desert. They were tired 
and weary and faint. It was hot work 
marching on with their little children and 
their cattle. The sun was beating down 
upon them, and it seemed as if they must all 
die soon of heat and faintness, when sudden- 



Wells and Water-pipes. 285 

ly through the long caravan went the cry 
of "-water." They had come to a place 
where there were indications of hidden 
springs, and instantly the men in the com- 
pany went to work and began to dig in the 
desert. Soon the water burst forth. Men, 
women and children caught up the cool and 
sparkling water in bowls and pitchers as it 
leaped forth in its fountain spray, and the 
people were saved. And then we read these 
words, "And from thence they went to Beer:" 
that is the well whereof the Lord spake unto 
Moses, "Gather the people together and I 
will give them water.'' Then Israel sang this 
song, "Spring up, well: sing ye unto it." 

This story of the well springing up in the 
desert reminds us of another story in the 
Bible, when a greater than Moses sat by a 
well, and used the well of water as a living 
picture of that grace of God which sustains 
our souls witli the ever living water of 
eternal life. The words are taken from the 
fourth chapter of St. John's gospel, and are 
as follows: 



286 A Father's Blessing. 

" Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, 
which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of 
ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 

" Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus 
therefore, being wearied with his journey, 
sat thus on the well : and it was about the 
sixth hour. 

" There cometh a woman of Samaria to 
draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me 
to drink. 

" (For his disciples were gone away unto 
the city to buy meat.) 

"Then saith the woman of Samaria unto 
him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask- 
est drink of me, which am a woman of Sa- 
maria ? for the Jews have no dealings with 
the Samaritans. 

"Jesus answered and said unto her, If 
thou knewest the gift of God, and who it 
is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou 
wouldest have asked of him, and he would 
have given thee living water. 

" The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou 
hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 



Wells and Water-pipes. 287 

deep: from whence then hast thou that liv- 
ing water? 

" Art thou greater than our father Jacob, 
which gave us the well, and drank thereof 
himself, and his children, and his cattle ? 

" Jesus answered and said unto her, Who- 
soever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
again : 

" But whosoever drinketh of the water 
that I shall give him shall never thirst ; 
but the water that I shall give him shall 
be in him a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." 

I want to speak to you to-day about the 
two sources of water-supply which we have 
in life. We shall find that there are the 
same two sources for our souls. 

T. 

First of all there is the supply which 
comes from a water-pipe. 

A pipe leads from some well or spring or 
source of supply, but it is not a source of 
supply itself. It is made of brick or of tiles, 



288 A Father's Blessing. 

and leads the water from some well or spring 
into a reservoir or cistern. Sometimes it 
has a leak in it, and the water escapes. 
Sometimes it gets filled and choked up 
with rubbish, and the water will not 
flow through it. Sometimes it gets full of 
impurities and gives a foul taste to the 
water as it passes through it. A drain is 
very useful, but it is not beautiful. I knew 
a gentleman who had so many water-pipes 
on his place at the sea-shore that his wife 
called the place " Drain Hurst." 

Well ! my dear children, how much of this 
drain-pipe business there is with us in life. 
We get our supplies from other people. We 
draw water from all sorts of sources outside 
of ourselves. We depend upon such a friend, 
or such a minister, or such a method of liv- 
ing. W r e are forever trying to lay pipes 
from outside sources to get supplies into 
our life, just as in Philadelphia the water- 
pipes carry the Schuylkill water from the 
reservoir at Fairmount to the homes all 
over the citv. If the water in the reser- 



Wells and Water-pipes. 289 

voir is muddy, the water in the houses 
will be muddy. If the water has a bad 
odor in the aqueduct, the pipe will carry 
that same water into our homes. You 
never can sing to a water-pipe and say, 
11 Spring up, oh, pipe : sing ye unto it." 
The water-pipe is only a channel from an 
outside source. It is not a source of sup- 
ply in itself. There were two women once 
who went a great deal to church. One 
seemed to be made better and stronger for 
going; the other said that going to church 
did her no good. " What is the reason ?" 
she asked of her friend, " what is the rea- 
son that you seem to be made better for 
going to church, and I beep just where I 
am all the time ?" 

" I will tell you," replied her friend. " I 
go to the services in order to get to Jesus 
Christ, while you go to the services merely 
for the sake of going to church." That 
church was a spring of grace to one woman: 
it was only an empty channel to the other 

one! 

19 



290 A Father's Blessing. 

My dear children, do not depend upon 
empty channels. Don't get into the way of 
living by outside sources of supply. They 
leak ; they get filled with rubbish ; they be- 
come foul. The water-pipe is very well in 
itself, but there is something much better 
after all than a pipe that may run dry. 

II. 

Secondly, there is the supply which comes 
from the spring. Jesus said to the woman 
of Samaria, "The water that I shall give 
him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
ing up into everlasting life." In another 
place Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is 
within you." There is no such source of help 
and comfort in life as that which comes to 
us from having our own sources: of power 
within us. 

There was a very near-sighted general in 
the civil war who suddenly found himself 
face to face witk the enemy. In five min- 
utes time he found that he must fight a bat- 
tle. He sent at once for one of his staff and 



Wells and Water-pipes. 291 

ordered him to bring his carpet-bag to him. 
The orderly-sergeant brought the brigadier- 
general his valise, and the brigadier-general 
began to get out his books and maps on 
his saddle pommel, and pulling on his spec- 
tacles, tried to find out from the books how 
he was to fight this battle. In a little while 
he was told he must scamper off the field as his 
troops had broken ranks and were flying. 
He lost that battle because he was trying to 
get his supply of knowledge through the 
books, instead of having a well of knowledge 
springing up within him. My dear children, 
learn this great lesson of life, that our sources 
of supply must be within us . Turn your books 
into brains; turn your outside supplies into 
internal springs. Learn to know what is 
right. Learn to know what your duty is. 
Ask God to open within you the springs of 
His grace and power. Clear out the weeds, 
the dirt, the stones and the rubbish, and let 
the wells of knowledge and duty and motive 
power spring up within you. 

Keep the living springs of love and con- 



292 A Father's Blessing. 

science, of gentleness, of tenderness, of pur- 
ity and truth, ever open within you. 

Thus you will find that when you are 
moved to do what is brave and true and pure, 
it is the springs that are within you that are 
bubbling up in constant motion. 

These, then, are the two sources of power 
which we learn from our subject. 

There is the method of the water-pipe, and 
there is the method of the spring. 

The fountain is better than the cistern. 

Therefore let us always sing this song: 

"Spring up, well: sing ye unto it." 



XXL 

" INNOCENCY." 

"Keep innocency and take heed unto the thing that 
is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last." 
— Ps. xxxvii. 38. (From the Psalter Version.) 

jTjMHERE was once upon a time a king 

^m^ on his way to his capital, which was 

a long way off, and his road lay through a 

village. As he went along, the villagers 

crowded to see him, and stood ranged all 

ajong the street. Among them was a 

young, timid girl, poorly dressed. As the 

king went by he saw her look sadly and 

supplicatingly towards him, and he stopped 

his horse and beckoned her to draw near. 

She modestly disengaged herself from the 

throng, and advanced. Then he asked her her 

name, and whether she was a native of that 

village, for, in truth she hardly looked like a 

(293) 



294 A Father's Blessing. 

common country girl. She answered that 
she was not born there, but was a native of 
his capital ; of that she was by birthright a 
citizen, but through her parents' fault she 
had been banished from it, and their great 
wealth, estates and titles had been forfeited. 

" And on what do you live ?" asked the 
king, quite touched. 

" I spin for my daily bread," she answered. 
" I earn enough to clothe and feed myself, 
and that is all." 

" And are you here alone in your exile ?" 
asked the king. 

" No sire ! I have five brothers." 

" But," he further asked, "do they not 
support you and give you of the fruit of 
their labor ?" 

" Sire !" exclaimed the maiden, opening her 
eyes w T ide, " they never give me anything, 
but often beg or borrow of me, and some- 
times reduce me to great straits." 

" Maiden," said the king, "I will examine 
into this matter. Here, take this ring, keep 
it until I return, w T hich will be shortly; I 



Innocency. 295 

cannot tell you the day, but it will be before 
long. When I return bring me my ring 
and I shall remember you by it, and if I 
have found that your story is true I will 
reinstate you in all your family honors and 
wealth. But," he added, with a warning 
gesture, "if you part with my ring 1 shall 
hesitate about trusting you." 

Then the king put his ring on her finger 
and rode away. 

Not long after he was gone the news of 
what had happened came to the ears of the 
girl's brothers. One of these was a painter, 
another was a musician, the third a cook, 
the fourth a gardener, and the fifth was a 
draper. As soon as the painter could he left 
his work and hastened to his sister, and 
looked at the ring. " What a lovely ring !" 
he exclaimed; "the gold is so fine, and the 
stone in it sparkles with all kinds of colors. 
Do, dear sister, lend or give it to me ; I want 
to paint a figure with rings on the fingers, 
and this will be useful as a pattern. Let me 
have the ring and I will paint you the most 



296 A Father's Blessing. 

beautiful picture you ever saw; indeed, I 
will hang pictures all around the room if 
you will give it to me." 

" No, brother," said the girl, " I cannot 
part with the ring. I have promised to 
keep it ; besides, when I receive my fortune 
at the king's return, I shall be so rich that I 
can buy as many pictures as I wish." 

The painter then went away dejected, and 
the musician came next. He also desired 
the ring. " Look here, sister," he said, 
"lend me the ring; I am going to a concert, 
and I want to appear as well dressed and 
with as many ornaments as I can. Lend it 
to me just for a bit, and I will give you a 
ticket for the concert, and you shall hear the 
most beautiful music for nothing." 

"Thank you, brother," said the maid, "I 
do not know when the king will return, so 
I must not part with the ring for a moment." 
So he also went away disappointed. Then 
came the third brother, the cook, and he 
also wanted the ring. " My dear sister," he 
said, "I know how badly you are off, and 



Innocency. 297 

what poor fare you have. It lias always 
been a trouble to me to think how scanty 
and mean are your repasts. If you will 
give me the ring I will send you every day 
the best dishes I can cook, and the most 
delicious cakes and sweetmeats in my shop." 
" Thank you, brother," answered the dam- 
sel, "I fare quite as well as I want. My 
meals are simple but sufficient, and I had 
rather wait till I receive my fortune before 
feasting, than run the risk of losing it by 
giving up my ring." The next to arrive 
was the gardener. "My good sister," he 
said, " come into my garden and let me show 
you what beautiful flowers I have. How 
sweet these roses smell, and how fragrant is 
that wreath of jessamine ! Look at that bed 
of thyme, what a delicious scent it exhales ! 
My sister, if you will give me your ring, I 
will provide you every day with a bunch of 
the most perfumed of my flowers." 

" I cannot part with the ring," answered 
the girl, " I have promised to keep it, and I 
value it above your flowers." 



298 A Father's Blessing. 

Then came the youngest brother, the 
draper, and he arrived with a number of 
boxes. "I have brought you," he said, 
" some of my most fashionable dresses, for 
you to see. Did you ever cast your eye on 
such laces and such silks ? And look at the 
style of the costumes ! You will find noth- 
ing like them anywhere ; and you shall have 
your pick of them for a trifle." 

" Thank you, brother," began the sister, 
when he interrupted her. " My dear, I am 
afraid you suffer from the cold in winter; I 
think you really ought to take more care of 
your health, and wear furs. Furs are now very 
fashionable and happen to be extraordinarily 
cheap. Look here at this beautiful mantle, 
lined with fur; I want nothing for it but 
that little ring on your finger. By the way, 
let me look at it. Gold, do you call it ? It is 
only brass. Do you think that stone a dia- 
mond ? Yon are quite mistaken, it is paste. 
However, as I am your brother, and as I said 
the word, you shall have the fur cloak. I 
shall be happy to accommodate you." 



INNOCENCY. 299 

" Thank you, dear brother," said the maid- 
en ; but she hesitated, for she longed to have 
the lovely laces and silks even more than 
the furs. Thank you, brother, I must re- 
fuse them ; I cannot part with the ring." 
But she said it with a sigh. 

My dear children, this story which I have 
found in an English book of sermons, is an 
allegory or parable. The preacher who used 
the story, says: "The soul is the maiden 
banished from Heaven, robbed of her high 
estate and great privileges, by the fault of 
our first parents, Adam and Eve. But God 
has looked on the soul and has promised her 
restoration. Only, the soul must be tried 
awhile, and must patiently wait His coming, 
and, above all, must preserve the ring of In- 
nocence. The soul has five brothers — the 
senses — sight, hearing, tasting, smelling and 
feeling ; and these are continually assailing 
her to give up to them her innocency. The 
soul is ever in danger of forfeiting her inno- 
cence through those temptations that come 
in through the senses. All sorts of pleasures 



300 A Father's Blessing. 

and comforts are robbed by the senses. But 
in exchange is asked the ring of Innocency." 
This sermon to-day is about 

u Innocency." 

I never read this beautiful psalm as it is 
found in the psalter for the fourth selection, 
without thinking of the wonderful calmness 
which seems to breathe through these words. 
They form the story and holy experience of 
the man who wrote them. He was a saint — 
and these words speak of divine faith and 
courage. 

" Hope thou in the Lord, and keep His 
way, and He shall promote thee that thou 
shalt possess the land; when the ungodly 
shall perish, thou shalt see it. I myself have 
seen the ungodly in great power, and flour- 
ishing like a green bay-tree. I went by, and 
lo! he was gone. I sought him, but his 
place could nowhere be found. Keep inno- 
cency, and take heed unto the thing that is 
right : for that shall bring a man peace at 
the last." * * * * 



INNOCENCY. 301 

It is frequently said that life is a game. 
We sometimes hear people speak of the 
" game of life." You know how it is with a 
game. It has its rules, its rewards and its 
punishments. Take, for instance, the game 
of " Tivoli.' 7 It is a board with tin pegs on it, 
like pins, and a marble is propelled through 
this wilderness of pins by a stick with a 
round end to it. The marble goes on its 
way through this forest of pins, and then 
tumbles into certain holes which are marked 
ten, twenty and fifty on, and ten, twenty and 
fifty off. 

Well, I have often thought how much the 
game of Tivoli is like the game of life. We 
all go out into the stages of life as the mar- 
ble goes out through the pins, and we fall into 
holes which are ten " off" our character or 
twenty "off" our career. What we all want 
to do is to avoid the holes in life where we 
get ten off or fifty off of our record. And 
this brings us to the one question of our sub- 
ject to-day : " How can I win in the game of 
life?" 



302 A Father's Blessing. 

Listen to the answer — it is all found in the 
words of our text to-day : " Keep innocency 
and take heed unto the thing which is right, 
for that shall bring a man peace at the last ! " 

There are two lessons for us all to learn 
from our subject to-day. 



The first lesson is that Innocency is God's 
best gift to His Children. 

God might have asked us to give Him 
strength, or beauty, or wisdom, and it might 
have been very difficult for us to have com- 
plied with His commands. But God only 
asks us to be true and pure and good. He 
asks us not to conform our lives to the stand- 
ard of the world about us, but to build up 
our characters upon the standard of His own 
divine nature. It is not keeping wisdom or 
power or beauty: it is keeping innocency, 
which will bring a man peace at the last. 
Innocency is the ring which God gives us; 
and the world, the flesh, and the devil — like 
the brothers in the storv of the maiden and 



INNOCENCY. 303 

her ring — are trying all they can to rob us of 
that which God has given us ; the one thing 
within us which is the marriage ring between 
our souls and God. 

In the story of " Pilgrim's Progress," 
Christian, the hero, is represented as receiv- 
ing a roll at the wicket-gate from the hands 
of Evangelist, his guide, which he was told 
to keep in his bosom until he should cross 
the river of death, and be received at the gate 
of the Celestial City. 

And, in the same way, my dear children, 
when we are brought into the Christian 
Church, we receive a mark or sign which 
we are to keep as a sacred symbol of purity, 
until we pass the waves of this troublesome 
world and come to the land of everlasting 
life, there to reign with God, world without 
end. 

Dear children — learn to reverence, in your 
nature, this sacred treasure, this purity or 
innocency of life. Do not soil your hands, 
your eyes, your ears, your life with impure 
thoughts, words and deeds. Bod ivords stick 



304 A Father's Blessing. 

Evil thoughts, once lodged in the mind, take 
root and abide there. Foul expressions, im- 
pure stories and low, obscene talk are like the 
seven devils, which took up their abode in 
the soul of the man in our Lord's parable, 
when the man's house was empty, swept and 
garnished. 

Keep innocency: keep innocency in your 
life, it is God's best gift to His children : it 
will indeed bring a man peace at the last. 

II. 

The second lesson of our subject is that 
Holiness is Man's best gift to God. 

Innocency is not holiness : innocency is the 
stuff out of which holiness is made. Wood 
and brick and stone and mortar are not the 
house ; they are the materials out of which 
the house is made. God gives us, in our 
childhood days, innocency. God wants us in 
return to give to Him, in our manhood and 
womanhood, this same innocency turned in- 
to holiness. 

A ship on the ways when it is launched 



INNOCENCY. 305 

from the shipyard is innocent, as it were, of 
all that is before it. But when it comes 
back into port again, after a long voyage in 
which it has conquered the storms and the 
gales of the ocean, it has added a new ele- 
ment to its work and has won or acquired a 
character of its own, which is something 
more than it was when it left the shipyard. 
A soldier on review in the parade ground is 
a pretty spectacle with his clean arms and 
bright uniform. But that same soldier, when 
he comes back to his friends and his family, 
after the long, hard campaign, is worth a 
great deal more than he was when he was a 
mere holiday soldier. 

And in this same way, my dear children, 
this life which is given to each one of us is 
only given to us on purpose to know whether 
or not we will do the will of God. It is like 
the sea which brings the vessel's power out. 
It is like the battle which tests and proves 
the stuff which is in the soldier. Holiness or 
wickedness is that which we earn for our- 
selves in life. If we keep innocency it will 



306 A Father's Blessing. 

turn into holiness. If we lose our innocency 
badness will come up in its place, just as 
weeds come up in a garden, unless that gar- 
den is sown with good seed. 

*' * * * 

Remember then these two lessons of our 
subject to-day : — 

1st. Innocency is God's best gift to His 
children; — 

2d. Holiness is man's best gift to God. 

11 Keep innocency and take heed unto the 
thing that is right, for that shall bring a man 
peace at the last." 

* * ■* * 

I want to say one word before I close. I 
never wrote anything in all my life amid such 
surroundings as those which have been with 
me while I have been writing this sermon. 

My dear father, so well known to the chil- 
dren of America, and of the world, by his 
writings, has died since I have written the 
- text of this sermon. 

It was my privilege to be with him, day 
and night, throughout all his sickness. I 



INNOCENCY. 307 

walked with him until he could walk no 
more. I wheeled him in a wheeling chair 
until the day before his death, when he could 
no longer sit in a chair. I read to him until 
he could listen no longer, and prayed with 
him until his consciousness left him. In all 
my life I never saw such purity and beauty 
of Christian character, and as the shadows of 
the grave began to close in upon that strong 
and holy life, his faith and courage and divine 
trust in his Saviour stood by him to the last. 

It is a solemn thing to die. Everything 
that is of the earth drops out of our hands 
then, as the toys do in the hands of tired lit- 
tle children when they fall asleep. 

Then we want only the strong and eternal 
things to keep us, as the things of this life 
disappear. And so, for myself, I shall never 
forget these words of our text — as I watched 
my dear father breathe out his soul in death 
in the early hours of that bright May morn- 
ing — " Keep innocency, and take heed to the 
thing that is right, for that shall bring a man 
peace at the last." 



XXII. 

LESSONS FROM THE FERRY- 
BOAT. 

" And there went over a ferry-boat to carry over the 
King's household." — 2 Sam. xix. 18. 

JJf^HIS sermon is a ferry-boat sermon. A 
P&< little while ago we had a wheel-bar- 
row sermon. To-day we have as our subject 
some lessons from the ferry-boat. The way 
I came to write this sermon was as fol- 
lows: When coming on to Philadelphia not 
long ago, while crossing over to Jersey City in 
one of the Pennsylvania Eailroad ferry-boats, 
I was wondering what I should write about 
in my next course of children's sermons. 
All of a sudden it came to me to write about 
the lessons which we learn from a ferry-boat 
— and so this ferry-boat sermon came into 

existence from my ride across the North 

(309) 



310 A Father's Blessing. 

Kiver from Courtlandt street to Jersey 
City. 

In the passage where our text is found 
to-day there is given us a description of the 
way in which King David came back again 
to Jerusalem after the death of Absalom. 
This nineteenth chapter of the first book of 
Samuel is a very remarkable chapter. First 
of all came Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, 
to welcome back the King. Then there 
came a man named Shimei who had cursed 
the King when he fled from the city. Now 
he was very sorry for his treacherous action, 
and came begging King David to forgive 
him for his evil conduct. Then there came 
a son of Saul whose name was Mephibosheth, 
to explain to the King why it was that he 
did not go to meet him, since he was lame 
in his two feet and could not walk. Another 
man who went to meet the King was named 
Barzillai. He was a very rich man and 
lived on the other side of the river Jordan. 
King David wanted him to cross the river 
and go and live at Jerusalem, but Barzillai 



Lessons from the Ferry-boat. 311 

declined, saying, " How long have I to live 
that I should go up with the King to Jeru- 
salem ? I am this day fourscore years old ; 
and can I discern between good and evil ? 
Can thy servant take what I eat or what I 
drink? Can I hear anymore the voice of 
singing men and singing women ? Where- 
fore, then, should thy servant be yet a bur- 
den unto the lord my King ? Thy servant 
will go a little way over Jordan with the 
King: and why should the King recompense 
me with such a reward ?" 

And then we come across the words of 
our text to-day : " And there went over 
a ferry-boat to carry over the King's house- 
hold, and to do what he thought good." 

I suppose this " ferry-boat " was a little 
skiff or scow, such as travellers see to-day on 
the Highland lochs in Scotland. These 
skiffs or scows were probably propelled 
across the water by poles which were 
pushed down into the bed of the stream in 
some such way as the lumbermen's rafts up 
in Maine are pushed by the lumbermen. 



312 A Father's Blessing. 

Well ! I think we can see these people 
coming down to the river from the opposite 
side of the banks of the Jordan, to see their 
dear old King go across the river and return 
to his capital at Jerusalem. We can see the 
baggage which they brought down with 
them to the boat. We can see the cattle 
which were driven down for the purposes 
of sacrifice, together with the women and 
children who wanted to see the last of the 
King on their side of the river Jordan. In 
fact it is quite a vivid picture which comes 
before our eyes when we read these words 
of our text to-day: " And there went over a 
ferry-boat to carry over the King's house- 
hold." 

And now let us see what lessons we learn 
from the ferry-boats. Perhaps you may have 
crossed over in a modern ferry-boat from 
New York to Brooklyn, or from Philadelphia 
to Camden, or from Jersey City to New York, 
and may have never thought how the ferry- 
boat can teach us all some very important 
lessons. 



Lessons from the Ferry-boat. 313 

We learn three lessons from the ferry- 
boats. 



First. Ferry-boats are at home on each side 
of the river. 

A ferry-boat is a boat of a very peculiar 
shape. It is what is called a " double-ender." 
It has a bow at each end of the boat. There 
is no difference between the stem and the 
stern. A ferry-boat will go either way, 
backward or forward. It never has to turn 
round. It goes back and forth from slip to 
slip like a shuttle in a loom. I have watch- 
ed sparrows on a ferry-boat and they have 
always seemed to be perfectly at home. 
Some time ago, on the Jersey City ferry, I 
watched an old yellow tabby cat with her 
kittens, who seemed to have her home in the 
engine-room. I kept wondering whether she 
paid her taxes in New York or in New Jer- 
sey. She seemed to be at home in either 
place. When a ferry-boat goes into its slip 
it is at home, no matter on which side of 



314 A Father's Blessing. 

the river it is. The first thing a ferry-boat 
teaches us is that it is at home on either side 
of the river. 

II. 

The second lesson that we learn from a 
ferry-boat is that ferry-boats make, the connec- 
tion perfect between opposite shores. I have oft- 
en watched a ferry-boat going into its dock. 
First it bumps on one side ; then it bumps 
on the other side. It rubs up along the side 
of the slip and lunges along against the piles 
and makes the passengers totter, but at last 
it fits into its proper place and comes to a 
stand still. Then the great hooks are put 
out into the boat's rings, and the windlass is 
turned with its crank and chains, and the 
sound ©f the ratchet is heard as the clogs in 
the windlass fall into place. Then the board 
is put down, the bow chain is dropped, the 
boat chains are drawn one side, and the pas- 
sengers and teams cross over the boards and 
go up the arched way to the street. The 
ferry-boat has done its work. It has taken 



LESSONS FROM THE FERRY-BOAT. 315 

tlie place of a bridge — and is a moving bridge 
in itself. It has carried the passengers and 
teams to the other side of the river and has 
made the connection perfect between the 
opposite shores. 

III. 

The third lesson we learn from the ferry- 
boat is that ferry-boats are guided by a di- 
recting eye. There is always in every ferry- 
boat a man at the wheel in the wheel-house. 
Passengers go on board; horses and wagons? 
loaded with freight wait patiently until the 
boat crosses; the boat moves on amid ice and 
rain and fog, and carefully finds its way 
across the harbor, crowded as it is with boats 
of steam and sail. Small boats get in the 
way ; ocean steamers cross the path ; the fer- 
ry-boat steams and stops and whistles; the 
engines obey the sound of the bell from the 
wheel-house, and in this way this moving 
world of life is safely landed by the skill and 
power of the all-seeing eye at the wheel. "I 
will guide thee with my eye " is a text which 



316 A Father's Blessing. 

might well adorn every wheel-house in its 
high and lofty perch. 

These, then, are the three lessons which 
we learn from the ferry-boat. 

Ferry-boats are at home on each side of 
the river; ferry-boats make the connection 
perfect between opposite shores; ferry-boats 
are guided by an all-directing eye. 

Now then, my dear children, let us apply 
these lessons to our subject to-day. 

What the ferry-boat is to the passengers 
who use it, God's revelation of truth is to the 
soul of man. God has provided a means of 
communication between Himself and us. 
This revelation of His truth is like the ferry- 
boat for our souls. The Gospel of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, as given us in the Bible and in 
the Christian Church, is the divinely appoint- 
ed means by which we can get from this 
world to Him, from this side of the river of 
death to the bright shore of Heaven. 

First of all— like the ferry-boat — this gos- 
pel of the Lord Jesus Christ is at home on 
each side of the river of death. It comes to 



Lessons from the Ferry-boat. 317 

us here in all our sin and darkness and temp- 
tation, and fits into our wants, just as the fer- 
ry-boat fits into its slip. The gospel fits right 
into all our human needs. It is not a philos- 
ophy only for the rich and the powerful and 
the great. It is something which comes in- 
to the life of us all and fits our needs, so that 
we can step right upon its broad platform 
and can trust ourselves to that power which 
will carry us safely across the waves of this 
troublesome life to God. It fits into the life 
that is to be, and yet at the same time it fits 
into the life which now is. 

Secondly, like the ferry-boat, this gospel of 
the Lord Jesus makes the connection perfect 
.between opposite shores. Jesus said unto 
his disciples: " My sheep shall never perish, 
neither shall any man pluck them out of my 
hands." 

It is a great comfort to us when we start 
out on a long voyage or a long land jour- 
ney, to feel that we will be brought safely 
through to our journey's end. It is a great 
comfort to feel that those who have the 



318 A Father's Blessing. 

charge of the ship or the train know what 
they are about, and are able to fulfil the con- 
tract and bring us safely through. And this 
is what St. Paul had in mind when he said 
of our Lord, " He is able to keep that which 
I have committed to Him against that day." 
When we feel our own weakness, feebleness 
and sin, when it seems to us as if we never 
should be able to overcome the temptations 
which are about us and get safely through 
at the last, then there is no such comfort in 
all the world like that which comes to us 
when we feel that the Lord Jesus Christ has 
carried other people through, and will do the 
same for us if we only are true and faithful 
to Him. 

Thirdly — like the ferry-boat — the gospel 
of the Lord Jesus Christ is guided by an 
All-Seeing Eye. 

God knows just how much we can stand. 
God knows just what trials and difficulties 
are in our way. We cannot see all the way 
through life. We cannot see the hidden 
difficulties in our way. But God sees the 



Lessons from the Ferry-boat. 319 

end from the beginning. His eye looks far 
across the hidden way of our life. God's 
hand is upon the machinery of our life. He 
moves us forward. He bids us stop. He 
saves us from this difficulty and from that 
obstacle. Through all the fog and cloud 
and storm, amid other jarring lives which 
at any moment might come into collision 
with us and ruin us — His eye and His 
hand protect us, and His all-wise Provi- 
dence directs our way, just as the man at 
the wheel guides the boat across the crowd- 
ed harbor. These, then, are the lessons which 
we learn from the ferry-boat. Let us thank 
God that there goes over a ferry-boat to car- 
ry over the King's household, and let us 
see to it, my dear young friends, that we 
have a place among that household — that 
we, too, may safely be carried through life 
until we reach that happy shore where we 
shall see the King in His beauty. 



xxm. 

"SPIRITS IN PRISON." 

" He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." 
1 Pet. iii. 19. 

AjJ^OME time ago I was up at a boat-house 
^s|f/ on a certain lake among the Berk- 
shire Hills. While we were waiting for the 
horses to be harnessed which were to take 
us home, the owner of the boat-house show- 
ed us some animals which he had trapped in 
the woods. There were three or four red 
foxes in a box, a hedgehog, a muskrat and 
some wild birds. Among the birds was a 
fine young eagle, with broad wings and a 
splendid white head. I admired the eagle 
very much, but I pitied the poor bird with 
all my heart. An American eagle was a pris- 
oner in a parrots cage. 
I want to speak to you to-day about " Spirits 

21 (321) 



322 A Father's Blessing. 

in prison." That eagle in a parrot's cage was 
a symbol of what is meant by a spirit in pris- 
on. He was never meant to be kept in a 
parrot's cage. He was a captive. He was 
in wrong surroundings. It was a gilded 
cage — but still it was a cage. He was a 
spirit in prison. 

What St. Peter means by this verse it is 
very hard to understand. He is speaking 
of the way in which our Lord entered the 
world of spirits after His death upon the 
cross. When His body was laid in the tomb 
of Joseph of Arimathea, the spirit of Jesus, 
with the soul of the penitent thief, entered 
into Paradise. There, in a world of spirits, 
were many souls who had never heard of 
Jesus. They were spirits shut up, as it 
were, in prison. To these spirits Jesus 
preached, and told them of the deliverance 
of the world by His mission of Salvation 
into it. 

Perhaps the words may have another 
meaning — but this is enough for our subject 
to-day. They tell us this much at least, 



Spirits in Prison. 323 

that Jesus Christ our Lord and Master tried 
to let the spirits free who had never heard 
of Him, and who were in prison in the dark 
world of the lost. 

Our sermon to-day is about 

" SPIRITS IN PRISON." 

We are not all body. We are not all 
mind. We are not all spirit. The body 
comes first, and is like the foundation of 
the house: the mind comes next and is like 
the middle stones of the house: the spirit 
comes last and is like the roof or dome of 
the building. We have each of us a spirit 
imprisoned or caged in our body. And that 
spirit in the cage or prison of the body is 
' waiting to be set free either by the power 
of God or by the power of Satan. God holds 
the key of the soul's prison in His hand; but 
Satan also has a false key to the heart of man. 
He is a thief and a robber, and is the 
father of lies. He too wants to get hold of 
these spirits in prison and set them free for 
his own service. 



324 A Father's Blessing. 

We learn three lessons to-day from this 
sermon about the Spirits in prison. 

I. 

First of all we learn that there is a hidden 
spirit in every one of us. 

When we go into the country in the win- 
ter time everything in nature seems to be 
dead. The trees are dead, and are without 
leaves; the little brooks and lakes are frozen 
over; the sound of the rippling brooks is not 
heard, and all the plants and flowers are 
covered over with a mantle of snow. There 
is a verse which St. Paul cites in this sense, 
when he says of some of his converts : " Ye 
are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in 
God." He means by this that these converts 
of his had a life which was hidden from the 
world, a life which the world could not 
see. 

Now, then, each one of us has a hidden 
life, or a hidden spirit, which those about us 
do not see. It takes us a long time to find 
out just what we really are. Perhaps it is 



Spirits in Prison. 325 . 

some duty or trial, or great responsibility 
which brings the hidden spirit out. In this 
way it very often happens that our trials are 
blessings in disguise. When the little 
eaglets are taken out from their nests by 
the mother eagle, they are carried on her 
back for awhile, and then the mother bird 
tosses them off and lets them fly for them- 
selves. No doubt the young eagles think 
this is severe treatment on the part of their 
mother, but then it is just this which makes 
them strong and gives them their power of 
wing. And- this is what Moses had in view 
when he said of the children of Israel, " As 
an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over 
her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, 
taketh them, beareth them on her wings — so 
the Lord alone did lead him, and there was 
no strange God with him." Just as there is 
a hidden life in the trees and brooks and 
plants in the winter time, so there is a hid- 
den spirit or life in each one of us. What 
we are is not all seen at once, and upon the 
surface. There is a hidden life or spirit in 



326 A Father's Blessing. 

us all which is under the surface, just as the 
brook flows on under the snow ; just as the 
sap of the tree flows on beneath the trunk. 
This hidden spirit may be imprisoned in our 
body; it may be handcuffed or fettered to 
some sin or temptation ; it may be bound to 
a gang of evil habits as the convicts are 
bound together by a chain around their legs, 
but there it is in us all the while. It is 
something which is hidden or imprisoned in 
us all. 

II. 

Secondly, we learn that the hidden spirit 
in us needs bringing out. Perhaps we may 
wonder in the winter time how it can be 
possible for the ice and snow to disappear, 
and how the trees and plants and flowers can 
ever bud and blossom again. They do not 
spring into new life of themselves. It is the 
sun in the heavens which sets the imprisoned 
life in nature free. The sun shines and the 
crops appear ; the sun shines and the brooks 
begin to ripple again; the sun shines and 



Spirits in Prison. 327 

the flowers come to life; the sun shines and 
the singing birds which have been hidden 
all come forth to the light. The sun in the 
heavens is a great preacher, a very drawing 
preacher to all vegetable life upon the earth. 
The sun preaches to the spirits in nature and 
brings all their hidden power out. 

Here is a violin. I cannot play it ; I can- 
not bring out the hidden music which is there. 
But presently some skilled performer takes 
it in his hand, and placing before him the 
music of Beethoven, or some great master, 
reproduces that music on the strings of the 
instrument. The music is already there in 
the violin. It has only needed bringing out. 
The music which has been imprisoned there 
needs to be preached to until it comes forth. 

When Michael Angelo, the great sculptor, 
was working at his statue of Moses, he 
was so enthusiastic over his work, that, up- 
on one occasion, he failed to take notice that 
Pope Julius and his cardinals had entered his 
studio and were standing by his side: " Don't 
stop me," " don't stop me," he said at last, 



328 A Father's Blessing. 

when he saw them in his studio. "lam fry- 
ing to get Moses out of this marble : he is 
imprisoned there." 

Well, my dear children, the hidden spirit 
which is in us all needs bringing out, just as 
the hidden life in nature needs to be brought 
out by the sun; or the music in the violin 
needs to be brought out by the musician, or 
the image in the marble needs to be hewed 
out by the sculptor. We do not know how 
true and strong and good we can become un- 
til the spirit which is imprisoned in the cage 
of our body is preached to or worked upon 
by the spirit of God. God is to our hidden 
spirit what the sun is to the crops, or the 
musician is to the violin, or the sculptor is 
to the marble. 

And this brings us to our last lesson. 

III. 

Thirdly, we learn that God alone can set 
the imprisoned spirit free. 

A very strange book has been written in the 
year past about a man who had the power of 



Spirits in Prison. 329 

being a good man and a bad man, just as he 
chose. When he became a good man he was 
known as Dr. Jekyll ; when he became a bad 
man he was known as Mr. Hyde. When 
Mr. Hyde could not be found, Dr. Jekyll was 
seen, when Dr. Jekyll could not be found, 
Mr. Hyde was seen on the streets. 

At last this strange power of turning from 
the good man to the bad man was lost, and, 
having become the bad Mr. Hyde, he never 
could change back again to the good Dr. 
Jekyll. His power to be good was gone, like * 
a magnetic battery which has lost its power. 

Well, my dear children, of course this is 
only a story, a fable, and yet there is a great 
deal of truth in it. The angel and the de- 
mon are in us all alike. If the spirit which 
is in us is not set free in the path of right- 
eousness, it will be let loose some day in the 
path of wickedness. 

This spirit which is imprisoned within us, 
like the eagle in the parrot's cage, will turn 
our life to God or to Satan according to the 
way in which it is set free- 



330 A Father's Blessing. 

At the battle of Waterloo both Napoleon, 
on the side of the French, and Wellington, 
on the side of the English, were expecting 
reinforcements. 

Grouchey, was the name of the marshal 
who was looked for impatiently by Napo- 
leon. Blue her, was the name of the Prus- 
sian General, whom the Duke of Welling- 
ton was expecting. Grouchey failed to 
arrive ; Blucher came upon the field early in 
the afternoon. The coming of Blucher 
turned the tide of victory upon the side of 
Wellington, and Napoleon was defeated. 

And in this same way, my dear children, 
the spirit which is within us, when once it is 
set free, will turn our lives towards sin or 
towards God. God and God's power alone 
added to our lives, can turn the fact of life 
into victory and can make a success of our 
living. " If God be for us who can be 
against us?" 

Now, then, in closing, my dear children, 
I beg you to remember that the angel and 
the demon are in us all alike. If the demon 



Spirits in Prison. 331 

in us is set free and is let loose from the 
cage or prison where it is confined, it will 
carry us to destruction. If the angel spirit 
in us is let loose from the prison-house of the 
body, it will bring us safely, over all sin and 
temptation, to God. 

Therefore let the Gospel of the Lord Jesus 
Christ preach to your spirits, now and here 
in time, in the cage of the body, with all its 
sins and infirmities, and you will be deliver- 
ed here in this world from the bondage of 
corruption into the glorious liberty of the 
children of God. 



XXIY. 
"THE LION AND THE BEAR." 

u Thy servant slew both the lion and the hear." 
1 Sam. xvii. 36. 

f E all like to go and see a menagerie. 
There is something about animals 
which is very attractive to us. Perhaps it 
is because we feel that in a certain way we 
are one with them. Perhaps it is because 
we see in the animals certain traits which 
we see and feel to be in ourselves, and 
in this we cannot help feeling that in 
some way they are our relations. "When 
I was a boy, in Philadelphia, there was a 
menagerie at Walnut and Eighth streets, 
where we used to go on Saturday after- 
noons. We were allowed to climb up the 

back of an elephant by a ladder, and then 

(333) 



334 A Father's Blessing. 

ride round a sawdust ring on the elephant's 
back, as we sat in a little palanquin — 
while the keeper sat on his neck and 
punched him on the head with a stick. 
Then there was a man who entered a box 
filled with royal Bengal tigers and leopards, 
and performed with them, to the great 
delight of the children. Menageries and 
panoramas have given place in these days to 
circuses and cycloramas; but somehow it 
seems to me that the old Saturday afternoon 
amusements were better. 

Our sermon to-day is a sort of menagerie 
sermon, and is about 

"THE LION AND THE BEAR." 

Now these words of our text are found in 
David's answer to king Saul, when the king 
wanted him to put on his armor and fight 
Goliath with it. David did not want to 
fight the Philistine Giant in Saul's armor, 
and preferred to take the shepherd's sling 
with the pebbles from the brook. In giving 
an account of his life to the king, he told of 



The Lion and the Bear. 335 

his exploits as a shepherd boy, and used 
these words of our text to-day. 

"And David said unto Saul, thy servant 
kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion 
and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock; 
and I went out after him, and smote him, 
and delivered it out of his mouth; and when 
he arose against me, I caught him by his 
beard and slew him. Thy servant slew both 
the lion and the bear, and this Philistine 
shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied 
the armies of the living God. David said 
moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of 
the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of 
the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand 
of the Philistine. And Saul said unto Da- 
vid — go, and the Lord be with thee." 

David was a great fighter all his life. He 
began his life by fighting animals. He con- 
tinued by fighting himself; he ended his 
life by fighting others. 

These were the three kinds of enemies he 
always had, and upon these he exerted all 
his strength. He began by fighting beasts. 



336 A Father's BleSvSing. 

He continued by fighting himself ; he ended 
by fighting the enemies of the Lord. 

* * * * 

My dear children, this ought to be the 
order for each one of ns in the matter of 
fighting sin. We ought to begin by fight- 
ing the beast, as David did, and we ought 
to begin by fighting the beast element which 
is in us all. 

# •& * * 

I want to speak to you to-day about fight- 
ing two beasts which are caged within us 
all, just as the wild beasts are caged at the 
menagerie. We have, each one oi us, a 
moral menagerie within us, and, sometimes 
the wild beasts that are in us get headway 
and need the whip and the lash of the keep- 
er and the trainer to keep them in order. 

" Thy servant slew both the lion and the 
bear." 

I. 

First of all we must fight the lion in our na- 
ture. The lion is said to be the king of beasts, 
but he is a fierce kind of king, " As fierce 



The Lion and the Bear. 337 

as a lion" has come to be a proverb. When 
Daniel was thrown into the den of lions it 
was supposed, by the nobles who had him 
thrown there, that they were putting him 
in as bad a place as it was possible for them 
to find. Those nobles supposed that Daniel 
would not have ten minutes' worth of life left 
in him from the first moment when he touch- 
ed the den. 

In Dr. Livingstone's book of travels in Af- 
rica, he describes the way in which on one 
occasion he was seized by a lion in a jungle. 
The great hairy beast broke his shoulder 
blade with his paw, and was just about to 
take a piece out of him when Dr. Living- 
stone's guide shot him. The doctor says in 
his book that he never had such a scene of 
terror and fright as when that African lion in 
the jungle laid his paw upon him and looked 
down upon his upturned face as he lay in 
the tall marsh grass. Now this lion trait of 
fierceness and cruelty is in us all. We are 
animals by nature. We have fiery passions 
and fierce anger. We have hatred, and 



338 A Father's Blessing. 

malice, and envy, and evil-speaking within 
us. We love to have our own way and to 
show our teeth and our claws, and our own 
evil and imperious will. 

There was a little boy once who used to 
give way to his anger by storming out in 
the nursery at his little sister. Whenever 
he would get these angry spells on him 
and roar out at his sister, the nurse would 
say: " Hear the lion roar." Then she used to 
make a noise like a lion, and this would 
make them all laugh, and then they would 
become good-natured again. 

" Thy servant slew both the lion and the 
bear." Begin the fight of life, my dear chil- 
dren, by fighting the beast nature that is 
within you. Begin at the very beginning. 
Fight the lion which is in you — the habit of 
anger and wrath and fierceness. 

II. 

But David fought another beast in his own 
nature. "Thy servant slew both the lion and 
the bear. 



The Lion and the Bear. 339 

We must fight the bear nature within us. 

Bears are very curious animals. We can 
learn a great many lessons from the way sand 
habits of bears. 

Up in Pittsfield, where I live, every spring 
of the year there come into the streets of the 
town two Canadians with a dancing bear. 
They travel down from Canada through Ver- 
mont, and exhibit their bear all through the 
Berkshire Valley. One of the men blows a 
bugle, and the other man leads the bear and 
his dancing pole. When they sit down to 
lunch they all lunch together, and drink beer 
together, and lie over on the grass to- 
gether. The men have not taken the bear 
out of the forest and made a man of him. 
On the contrary, the bear has taken the man- 
hood out of the men, and has made them 
both as bearish as he is. In fact, as you see 
them walking up the street together, you 
would think that three bears had come to 
town and were seeing the sights. 

Now the "bear" is in us all. We can 
all be "bearish" if we want to be so, if 



340 A Father's Blessing. 

we only let the bear element in us get 
headway. 

It is said that the mother bear licks her 
cubs into shape when they are little, and in 
this way makes them presentable to the rest 
of their relations. 

After the mother bear has spent all her 
skill and energy in this way the young bears 
are supposed to be educated, and to be fitted 
for the duties and responsibilities of bear so- 
ciety. I was reading the other day a fable 
about this habit among the bears. It appears 
a mother bear was very much afraid that a 
great lion, who lived in the forest near them, 
might some day devour her young ones when 
they were off at play, or had gone on errands; 
so she told her fears to the lion one day when 
he was paying the bear family a social call. 
The lion in a very polite way declared that 
nothing would be further from his intentions 
than to hurt her children, if he could only 
tell how he was to know her cubs. 

"0," replied the mother bear, "nothing 
can be easier. You will know my little dears 



The Lion and the Bear. 341 

at once ; they are the most beautiful cubs in 
the world; their education is all finished; I 
have just finished licking them into shape." 

The lion bade the family adieu, and set off 
on his journey home through the forest. 
Feeling very faint and hungry, he was at a loss 
to know how he was to find any refreshment, 
when all of a sudden he came upon two fat 
little cubs waddling home. After a few 
short struggles he felf upon the cubs and 
made a good meal out of them, and then pur- 
sued his way homa The next day he was 
called upon by the stricken mother, who ex- 
pressed her surprise at his unfeeling action, 
whereupon he replied, " My dear madam, 
nothing can give me greater pain than to 
think of the unfortunate mistake which has 
been made; but I really found it quite im- 
possible to see in the ugly little cubs which 
I devoured, the beautiful creatures which 
you so eloquently described to me. " 

Now, my dear children, there is no mistak- 
ing the fact that many boys are little else 
than young bears who need to be trained in- 



342 A Father's Blessing. 

to shape. This is what school does for us ; this 
is what our true friends do for us ; this is what 
society does for us. All education — and all 
Christian education, is intended to get the 
bear out of us and to mould us into fitting 
shape. Learn then not to be bearish. Learn 
to fight the bear in you — and to keep it down 
under your firm and strong Christian will. 

In the city of Berne, in Switzerland, there 
is a monument in the market place to the 
Burgundian Duke, who, many hundred years 
ago, founded that city. He killed a bear on 
that spot, and when he founded the city he 
named it Berne — the Burgundian word for 
bear. As I looked at the statue, one day, in 
the market place, I found that there was a 
motto on it, which motto I put in my note 
book. That motto is as follows : " E Bellua 
ccesa sit nomen urbis " — " From a bear slain let 
the city take its name." And so I say to you 
to-day — From the bear slain in your nature 
let the name of your true character be made. 
Kill the bear in you and build up a new char- 
acter on the spot where the bear was slain. 



The Lion and the Bear. 343 

" Thy servant slew both the lion and the 
bear." 

Now then, my dear children, begin the 
fight of life with David by fighting the ani- 
mal in your own nature. Fight being fierce 
and cross; fight being bearish and sullen. 
Get the beast nature out of your life and 
character, and when you have fought the 
beasts that are in you, God will give you 
strength to fight the giants which are around 
you — as he gave David the strength to fight 
Goliath — by giving him, first of all, the 
strength in the days of his young shepherd life 
to fight the lion and the bear. Ask the Lord 
Jesus Christ to help you ; for He came into 
this world on purpose to give us strength and 
power to overthrow the works of the devil. 

Being fierce and being sullen are the two 
animals in our nature we all have to fight 
in life. 

Ask the Lord Jesus Christ to give you 
power to overcome both of these; so that 
like David you may " slay both the lion and 
the bear." 



March, 1887- 

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ier, D.D. 

BICKERSTETH, Rev. E. H. 

Yesterday, To-day, and Forever. A Poem. Pocket edi- 
tion, $0. 50; i6mo, #1.00; i2mo 1.50 

" If any poem is destined to endure in the companionship of 
Milton's hitherto matchless epic, we believe it will be ' Yesterday, 
To-day, and Forever.'" — London Globe. 

BLUNTS Coincidences and Paley's Horae Pau- 

linae. 121110 1.50 

BONAR, Horatius, D.D. 

Hymns of Faith and Hope. 3 vols. i6mo 2.25 

Bible Thoughts and Themes. 6 vols. i2ino .... 12.00 

Way of Peace 0.50 

Way of Holiness 0.60 

Night of Weeping 0.50 

Morning of Joy 0.60 

Follow the Lamb 0.40 

How shall I go to God ? 0.40 

BOWES, Rev. G. S. 

Scripture its own Illustrator. i2mo 1.50 

Information and Illustration. i2mo 1.50 

BRODIE, Emily. 

Jean Lindsay, The Vicar's Daughter 1.25 

Dora Hamilton's Choice. i2mo 1.25 

Elsie Gordon, nmo 1.25 

Uncle Fred's Shilling, nmo 1.25 

Lonely Jack. i2mo 1.25 

Ruth's Rescue. i6mo 0.50 

Nora Clinton. i2mo 1.25 

The Sea Gull's Nest. i6mo 0.60 

Norman and Elsie. i2mo 1.25 

Five Minutes too Late 1.25 

East and West 0.60 

His Guardian Angel . 1.25 

CHARLESWORTH, Miss M. L. 

Ministering Children. i2mo 1.50 

" " i6mo 1.00 

Sequel to Ministering Children. i2mo ...... 1.50 

" " " i6mo 1.00 

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CHARLES WORTH, Miss M. L., continued. 

Oliver of the Mill. 121x10 $1.00 

Dorothy Cope, containing " The Old Looking-Glass " and 

" Broken Looking-Glass." i2mo 1.50 

CUYLER, Rev. T. L. 

Pointed Papers. i2mo 1.50 

Thought Hives. i2mo 1.50 

From Nile to Norway 1.50 

Empty Crib. 24mo 1.00 

Cedar Christian. iSmo 0.75 

Stray Arrows. i8mo 0.60 

God's Light on Dark Clouds. Flexible, red edges . . . 0.75 
"In this beautiful little volume the author presents a grateful 

offering to the ' desponding and bereaved.' . . . He offers to others 

what he has tested for himself. The book is written out of a full heart 

and a vivid experience." — Presbyterian Review. • 

*D'AUBIGNE, Dr. Merle. 

*History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century. 

5 vols., ismo, cloth, in a box 4.50 

*History of the Reformation in the Tune of Calvin. 8 vols., 

i2mo, cloth, in a box 8.00 

"The work is now complete ; and these later volumes, together 
with the original five, form a library relating to the Reformation of 
incalculable value and of intense interest. The pen of this master 
of history gave a charm to everything that he touched." — New York 
Observer. 

*A very cheap edition of Reformation in the Sixteenth 

Century. 5 vols, in one, 890 pages, cloth 1.00 

DICKSON, Rev. Alexander, D.D. 

All about Jesus. i2mo 2.00 

Beauty for Ashes. i2mo 2.00 

u His book is a ' bundle of myrrh,' and will be specially enjoyed x. 
by those who are in trouble." — Rev. Dr. W. M. Taylor. 

" Luscious as a honeycomb, with sweetness drawn from God's 
Word." — Rev. Dr. Cuyler. 

DRINKWATER, Jennie M. 

Only Ned. i2mo „ 1.2H 

Not Bread Alone. i2mo 1.25 

Fred and Jeanie. i2mo 1.25 

Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline. i2mo 1.50 

Rue's Helps. i2mo 1.50 

Electa; A Story. i2mo 1.50 

Fifteen. i2mo 1.50 

Bek's First Corner. i2mo 1.50 

Miss Prudence. i2mo 1. 50 

The Story of Hannah. i2mo 1.50 

That Quisset House 1.50 

Isobel's Between-Times 1.5* 

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EDWARDS, Jonathan. 

*Works. In 4 vols. 8vo $6.00 

" I consider Jonathan Edwards the greatest of the sons of men." 

— Robert Hall. 

FRASER, Dr. D. 

Synoptical Lectures on the Books of Holy Scripture. New 

and revised edition. 2 vols, nmo 4.50 

"The plan is to give a general view of the scope and contents of 
each book in the Bible. It is designed not for professional students 
alone, but for all educated Christians. The careful reader will gain 
from, its pages clear ideas of the arrangement, subject-matter, and 
salient features of the Sacred Scriptures." — New York Observer. 
GIBERNE, Agnes. 

Aimee. A Tale of James II. i2mo 1.50 

The Curate's Home. i6mo 1.25 

Floss Silverthorn. i6mo 1.25 

Coulyng Castle. i6mo 1.50 

Muriel Bertram. i2mo 1.50 

The Sun, Moon, and Stars. i2mo 1.50 

The World's Foundations ; or, Geology for Beginners. 

i2mo 1.50 

Through the Linn. i6mo 1.25 

Sweetbriar. i2mo 1.50 

Duties and Duties. i6mo 1.25 

Jacob Witherby. i6mo 0.60 

Decima's Promise. i2mo ....<.. 1.25 

Twilight Talks. i6mo 0.75 

Kathleen. 121110 1.50 

Daily Evening Rest. i8mo 1.03 

Beryl and Pearl. i2mo • 1.50 

Old Umbrellas. i2mo 0.90 

Among the Stars ; or, Wonders in the Sky. i2mo . . . 1.50 

Madge Hardwicke 1.00 

Father Aldur : a Water Story 1.50 

OREEN, Prof. Wm. Henry, D.D. 

The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded. i2mo . . 1.75 
"That ancient composition, so marvellous in beauty and so rich 
in philosophy, is here treated in a thoroughly analytical manner, and 
new depths and grander proportions of the divine original portrayed. 
It is a book to stimulate research." — Methodist Recorder. 

Moses and the Prophets. i2mo, cloth i.gci 

" It has impressed me as one of the most thorough and conclusive 
pieces of apologetics that has been composed for a long time. The 
critic confines himself to the positions laid down by Smith, and, with- 
out being diverted by any side issues or bringing in any other views 
of other theorists, replies to those positions in a style that carries 
conviction." — Professor W. G. T. Shedd, D.D. 

The Hebrew Feasts. 121110 . . i.gtf 

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